Top 10 Favorite Video Games of all time!

[KillingAScarab]

I have to congratulate all the people with TIE Fighter on their lists. It has been a long time, but even with a joystick (connecting through a serial port in those pre-USB days) I never quite got the hang of those controls.

Kudos to those who remember Mystic Quest or Gladius, both of which no one has ever heard of.
Mystic quest also gets a mention for the hardest puzzle in a game I have seen. It took me 10 years to figure it out. Why yes, I did play a Gameboy game for that long; it was that good.

Have you had the chance to try the latest re-release, Adventures of Mana?

In the US the game called "Final Fantasy Adventure" was the first of the Seiken Densetsu series (of which "Secret of Mana" was the second.) The US has Final Fantasy Mysic Quest. It was a much... different, and IMO far worse game that was on the SNES. So your comment confused me until Wikipedia came to the rescue.

If you cannot find something to like about the gameplay of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, you may still find something to like in its music. Even its main battle theme, despite hearing it over and over again, rocked too much to be tiresome for me. There are some good covers of that.

...and Metroid 2.

If you haven't already checked it out, you may be interested in Another Metroid 2 Remake. This is the 25th anniversary of Metroid II: Return of Samus, so I'm kinda hoping there will be a special AM2R update for it at some point.

[Jonzac]

Ah yes...wonderful memories

In mostly top to bottom order

1. Falcon 4.0
2. Rowan's Battle of Britian (1000+ aircraft in the sky...YESSSSS)
3. Dark Age of Camelot
4. Rome- Total War (made my boys HUGE Roman/Greek history fans)
5. Xcom: UFO Defense/Terror from the Deep
6. Battlefront's Combat Mission Series (No seriously EVERY FREAKING ONE OF THEM)
7. Call of Duty 2 (The one with the Normandy Beach Mission)
8. Civ IV
9. Morrowind
10. Skyrim

[Antonok]

Hmmm... well lets see.

10: Persona 3
9: .hack//G.U. (Trilogy, can't really pinpoint a single one)
8: Darksiders 2 (RIP THQ...)
7: Secret of Mana
6: Final Fantasy 7/Final Fantasy 10
5: Shin Megami Tensai Nocturne
4: Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (really, the entire series, but that was my fav out of the series)
3: Chrono Trigger
2: Dark Souls
1: Legend of Zelda (another series, but Link to the Past and Link's Awakening are the top 2)

Honorable Mention: Legend of the Dragoon. VERY good game, just not quite enough to make the list.

Edit: Wow can't tell I'm an RPG fan.....

[Eldariel]

This is absurdly difficult. Could easily write Top 10 per genre and have them all be relatively close. I guess I'll have to leave out many of my semi-favorites... Let's see now:


10. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
9. TIE Fighter
8. Jagged Alliance 2
7. Grim Fandango
6. The Witcher
5. Master of Orion 2
4. Chrono Trigger
3. Alpha Centauri
2. Brood War
1. Baldur's Gate Trilogy

...and now my list is missing stuff like Civilization 4, UFO: Enemy Unknown, X-Com: Apocalypse, X-Wing Alliance, I-War, Mass Effect 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Falcon 4.0, Megaman 2, Planescape: Torment, Medieval: Total War, Rome: Total War, Hearts of Iron 2, Half-Life, HoMM 2, Freescape 2, Panzer General, Close Combat 2, Shandalar, Master of Magic, Homeworld, C&C: Tiberian Dawn, Defcon, Final Fantasy 6, Seiken Densetsu 3, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Fallout 2, Hitman, Thief: A Dark Project... And that's just the very best right off the top of my head. I think I've played a bit too much.

[Corlindale]

In no particular order:

Portal
Morrowind
Dark Souls
Civilization IV
Diablo 2
Path of Exile
We Love Katamari
Final Fantasy VIII (yes, VIII - maybe the nostalgia goggles talking...)
Might & Magic VII
Heroes of Might & Magic III

I'm bound to have missed some that should be there...

[danzibr]

Final Fantasy VIII (yes, VIII - maybe the nostalgia goggles talking...)

This would be one of my favorites (not only in the series, but like ever) were it not for 2 things: using magic takes away from your junctions, and the fact that the baddies level up with you.

Also, looking back at my list... I played a lot of old games. I mean, I started when I was ~4 on the NES. Went through Sega Genesis, SNES, 32X, etc. But somehow those didn't make it on the list.

I know! Phantasy Star IV. Mmm, 'das nice.

[Tentreto]

I did a list already, but just remembered Cortex Command, quite a good do what ya want game.

Have you had the chance to try the latest re-release, Adventures of Mana?

I have, though I liked mystic quest more due to a surprisingly good and dark story, and the music. Endless battlefield is incredible!
Also, the previous remake wasn't great...

Man I forgot about pkmn mystery dungeon. No matter how many times I play those games and know whats coming the endings still make me cry

I know. All have good stories and the world is surprisingly dark, having 4 apocalyptic events in more or less a lifetime. Though the only twist that got me was in 4. You know the one.

Spoiler: Massive spoiler for super mystery dungeon

Show

When it turns out MEW is your partner! Then goes into the light instead of you. Bait and switch...

[Greg_S]

Ooh, fun. The games I've had the most fun with:

1: Chrono Trigger
2: Mega Man 3
3: Final Fantasy IV
4: Heroes of Might and Magic III
5: Fallout 2
6: Super Metroid
7: Perfect Dark
8: Dragon Quest IX
9: Diablo II
10: Dark Souls

If we were just ranking series, I'd have to throw the Disgaea series on here too.

[danzibr]

If we were just ranking series, I'd have to throw the Disgaea series on here too.

Seconded. I've only played III and IV (want to do the rest... just hasn't happened yet), and had tremendous amounts of fun with them. Individually, not my favorite games ever.

[Zigwat]

Ooh, fun. The games I've had the most fun with:

1: Chrono Trigger
2: Mega Man 3
3: Final Fantasy IV
4: Heroes of Might and Magic III
5: Fallout 2
6: Super Metroid
7: Perfect Dark
8: Dragon Quest IX
9: Diablo II
10: Dark Souls

If we were just ranking series, I'd have to throw the Disgaea series on here too.

You, sir, have very good taste.

[Avilan the Grey]

Thing is that if you remove the nostalgia filter, a lot of the games you loved are crap. They simply have aged horribly.
That said, with Nostalgia Filter ON:

1. ME3
2. ME2
3. Baldur's Gate II
4. Roller coaster Tycoon 2
5. Transport Tycoon
6. The Summer Games / Winter Games franchise
7. Ghosts n Goblins
8. Pac Man
9. The Great American Cross Country Road Race
10. Exploding Fist

...What? Me old?

[Erloas]

Also in no particular order.
And I haven't replayed some in a very long time to see how I feel about them now, so there is some nostalgia glasses on a bit (but favorite games is pretty much what you had the most fun with and that is contemporary)


Fallout 2 (and a lesser extent 1)
Privateer 2 (and a lesser extent 1)
Mass Effect (series)
Borderlands (series)
Quest for Glory (series)
Dark Age of Camelot
SimCity 2000/3000
Puzzles and Dragons (wasn't sure to list this, but I've been playing for almost 3 years and given them more money than maybe any other game)
Diablo 3 (not sure if I want to list this, but we're having a lot of fun with it right now)
Portal 1&2
EVE (I didn't actually play this that long, and actually there was quite a bit about it that just didn't fit with me, but the sheer depth and design of the game has always keep me interested. It is the only MMO I've ever went back to after quitting and I do still follow up on occasionally)

Going to put an honorably mention to:
Armored Core and MechWarrior. Going to put them together because of how I think of them. I really enjoyed the Armored Core games and while they play different they have a similar design. I played MechWarrior some (but not a lot, computer wasn't good enough when it came out) but I didn't really come to appreciate it until much later after I played BattleTech as a TT game and read some of the novels.
Techmo's Deception. Really loved the idea and played quite a few versions of it. Really a unique niche game that I enjoyed and very few people have tried anything similar.
Mortal Realms - a MUD. I didn't play a whole lot of different MUDs but I don't think it was anything revolutionary in the space, but I spent several years of high school playing it (on a very slow dial-up modem that connected to a library text based web browser, it was about the only thing I could do with that connection)

[Eldariel]

Thing is that if you remove the nostalgia filter, a lot of the games you loved are crap. They simply have aged horribly.

That's actually an interesting question: it certainly depends on what you value in a game too. Graphics is the one constant that has been constantly improving over the decades. However, if you are just as happy playing an ASCII game as you are playing Myst, chances are that's not going to weight an awful lot in your scales. Provided you're e.g. a gameplay or story enthusiast, it's fully possible that the classics have yet to be toppled in this era of burger games made to please the greatest common denominator. Certainly, the flaws in every game become apparent over decades to even the most diehard of fans, but I posit that they can still be the best in what they offer if they have to be supplanted (or their descendants flopped á la MoO3/SC2/Tiberian Sun/etc.).

E.g. the only meaningful challenger for the throne held by Baldur's Gate Trilogy is Pillars of Eternity; the genre has basically received no new games for a long time as developers departed from the model of character-driven story-based RPGs with a proper degree of polish (and some latter entries were sadly half-assed products).
Same would apply to space simulators: TIE Fighter still holds its own though X-Wing Alliance and the non-Hollands takes in Freespace and I-War also stand tall. And actually, it's true with adventure games too - the genre has been all but dead until the Indie Revolution and so far I haven't found anything matching the writing of the Lucas Arts golden age (I'll freely admit I haven't played everything in existence though).
And with TBS, while the recent Civilizations have been interesting, I still don't think Alpha Centauri has been toppled (though give Beyond the Earth some expansions and we'll see).
RTS, likewise true with Brood War. If I want to play an RTS polished to perfection, that's probably still what I'll boot up.
Fighting games are a bit of an interesting class: the best ones tend to be born as accidents since they're generally not designed for the competitive market but that's where they'll be pushed to the limit and age. It certainly wouldn't be hard to make more 3rd Strikes but 3rd Strike wasn't really a commercial success.


But overall, point being, it's not necessarily just nostalgia goggles, though they certainly always play a part. Props for naming Transport Tycoon by the way; we're still playing it on'n'off with friends in OpenTTD - one of those ageless games that's always just as awesome.

[Zigwat]

I wasn't a huge fan of myst. It seemed like their puzzles were ever so hit and miss. Some of them were very thought provoking, but then some of them were absolute wastes of time. They were easy, but they just took forever to actually get to the solving portion.

D on the other hand, for the Sega Saturn, was a damn good game. While the puzzles were not especially hard, the atmosphere and the dynamic between the girl and her father were interesting. Then there's the part where you unlock all of her flash backs for some creepy times. Myst didn't have the creep factor, in fact, it didn't have much of anything other than some pretty cool backgrounds and interesting looking machinery.

As far as puzzle/riddle games go, it's hard to find the best one since they all have their own certain type of charm.

[Hiro Protagonest]

(or their descendants flopped á la SC2).

Okay, so it's not as knife-edge balanced as Brood War. It still has a much smoother interface.

[Arcane_Snowman]

10: Unreal Tournament 2004
9: Dungeon Keeper 2
8: Spec Ops the Line
7: Portal 1&2
6: Sacrifice
5: Civilization 5
4: The Secret World
3: Transistor
2: Psychonauts
1: Planescape: Torment

Overwatch is going to get an honorable mention. In the short time that I've been playing it I can see myself getting tons of hours of fun out of it.

[Dienekes]

Okay, so it's not as knife-edge balanced as Brood War. It still has a much smoother interface.

People seem to forget that Brood War took years to balance, and when it came out it was much worse than HotS in terms of win-rates (which I consider the closest comparison, largely since LotV changed so much in the early game it might as well be seen as a whole new game to SC2).

But, I would argue that the smoother interface is part of the reason SC2 is overall less interesting. The limitations of the system meant making the giant deathballs impractical, and relied on more fast paced skirmish tactics. That said, on the other side of things it made it much harder to start playing BW, it's fiddly nature and poor pathing made the learning curve huge.

[Avilan the Grey]

That's actually an interesting question: it certainly depends on what you value in a game too. Graphics is the one constant that has been constantly improving over the decades. However, if you are just as happy playing an ASCII game as you are playing Myst, chances are that's not going to weight an awful lot in your scales. Provided you're e.g. a gameplay or story enthusiast, it's fully possible that the classics have yet to be toppled in this era of burger games made to please the greatest common denominator. Certainly, the flaws in every game become apparent over decades to even the most diehard of fans, but I posit that they can still be the best in what they offer if they have to be supplanted (or their descendants flopped á la MoO3/SC2/Tiberian Sun/etc.).

E.g. the only meaningful challenger for the throne held by Baldur's Gate Trilogy is Pillars of Eternity; the genre has basically received no new games for a long time as developers departed from the model of character-driven story-based RPGs with a proper degree of polish (and some latter entries were sadly half-assed products).
Same would apply to space simulators: TIE Fighter still holds its own though X-Wing Alliance and the non-Hollands takes in Freespace and I-War also stand tall. And actually, it's true with adventure games too - the genre has been all but dead until the Indie Revolution and so far I haven't found anything matching the writing of the Lucas Arts golden age (I'll freely admit I haven't played everything in existence though).
And with TBS, while the recent Civilizations have been interesting, I still don't think Alpha Centauri has been toppled (though give Beyond the Earth some expansions and we'll see).
RTS, likewise true with Brood War. If I want to play an RTS polished to perfection, that's probably still what I'll boot up.
Fighting games are a bit of an interesting class: the best ones tend to be born as accidents since they're generally not designed for the competitive market but that's where they'll be pushed to the limit and age. It certainly wouldn't be hard to make more 3rd Strikes but 3rd Strike wasn't really a commercial success.


But overall, point being, it's not necessarily just nostalgia goggles, though they certainly always play a part. Props for naming Transport Tycoon by the way; we're still playing it on'n'off with friends in OpenTTD - one of those ageless games that's always just as awesome.

Short answer to long text:
Some of the oldest games I played I LOVED mainly because 1) they were, as it were, the ONLY games available and 2) I was very young and played everything I got my hands on.
However a bigger, more common problem is the UI or gameplay, a lot of the time. The story is great (if the game is story focused), the clunky graphics I'm fine with... But if a game has an UI that you really have to fight with... that game loses it's appeal very quickly.

[Zigwat]

There will always be games that were not as good as you remember, or have not aged well. For me, that would be Alice, I use to love that game, but it did not age well, both in gameplay and graphics. Which is why I loved Alice: Madness Returns so much.

Then there's games that I will always love, hence why Dragon Warrior is #1 on my list, it is the purest form of a Fantasy RPG, and I love it for Nostalgic reasons, as well as its simplistic gameplay with some of the most obsolete graphics that have massive amounts of charm. It is proof that graphics are not everything, but they don't hurt either.

[Cespenar]

Eh, the aging issue differs a lot from title to title. For example, Planescape, Fallout and Morrowind can be argued to have aged more than, say, Baldur's Gate, Master of Magic, ADOM, Heroes 3, etc.

Eldariel put it quite clearly, I think.

[factotum]

Thing is that if you remove the nostalgia filter, a lot of the games you loved are crap. They simply have aged horribly.

I've played every single one of the games on my list within the last 5 years (thank heavens for GOG!) and they all hold up, IMHO. You might have to redefine the default control scheme to something sane (looking at System Shock 2 here, the default controls are W forward, A/D to *turn* left and right rather than strafe, and X to backpedal...) but other than that they still work, and at least they allow you redefine the controls in the first place, which is something a lot of modern games don't let you do!

[Corlindale]

The nostalgia filter discussion got me thinking. Though I put Morrowind on my list, it's true that I have never really been able to get into it again recently. On the other hand, I still joyfully replay Might & Magic VII, which is a similar genre but even older and with more primitive graphics.

[ben-zayb]

"Objectively" ranking games is hard to truly achieve; that is, strictly outlining each criteria you have, justifying the choice of using such criteria, and justifying why the game earned such and such scores in that criteria. It would also be like comparing apples and oranges for some games in even the same category. You can't tell me with a straight face that, for an RTS example, Rise of Nations, Stronghold: Crusader, and SC2 have enough gameplay similarities for point of comparison that you could objectively justify ranking them for the entire RTS category just based on those similarities.

The only criteria that seems objective enough are technical aspects such as possible lag, or bugginess (is that even a word?), graphics/sound "quality", software compatibility, complexity of mechanics, and system requirements. Actually, even those are arguable depending on who you ask.

[Cespenar]

The nostalgia filter discussion got me thinking. Though I put Morrowind on my list, it's true that I have never really been able to get into it again recently. On the other hand, I still joyfully replay Might & Magic VII, which is a similar genre but even older and with more primitive graphics.

That's because Bethesda has been consistently making new Morrowinds. There's hardly a new M&M 7 around, though.

[Aran Thule]

Trawling back through the ages, will try to put in order.
1st Place) Star Control 2
Such humour, add it to alliance building, asteroid style combat and more funky alien races then you can wave a stick at and you have the game that made me a *Happy Camper*
you can even download it for free from http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php
2nd) Dark Age of Camelot
Hibernia forever! Luri's Rule!!!
3rd) Baldurs Gate Series
4th) Deux Ex
5th) Elite series (apart from the nasty bugged one)
6th) Lords of Midnight/Doomdarks Revenge
7th) Mass Effect Series
8th) Unreal Tournament
9th) Max Payne
10th) Silent Hill

[Eldan]

That's because Bethesda has been consistently making new Morrowinds. There's hardly a new M&M 7 around, though.

I'd debate that. Morrowind lived by an interesting world, a portrait of unique cultures and an ancient conflict between religious sects and political parties. Oblivion and Skyrim traded that for far more generic fantasy cultures and world destruction plots. If Skyrim was like Morrowind, it would have been about the prophecy of the new Dragonborn forging a fourth Empire, and the conflict between the Blades', Greybeards' and Dragon Priests' interpretation of ancient texts and the dragons would mainly have existed to validate your claim on Divine Power.

[KillingAScarab]

That's because Bethesda has been consistently making new Morrowinds. There's hardly a new M&M 7 around, though.

I'd debate that. Morrowind lived by an interesting world, a portrait of unique cultures and an ancient conflict between religious sects and political parties. Oblivion and Skyrim traded that for far more generic fantasy cultures and world destruction plots. If Skyrim was like Morrowind, it would have been about the prophecy of the new Dragonborn forging a fourth Empire, and the conflict between the Blades', Greybeards' and Dragon Priests' interpretation of ancient texts and the dragons would mainly have existed to validate your claim on Divine Power.

Also, I don't remember the part of Morrowind where someone went into a portal and fought Cthulhu, or the part where someone kept yelling "Fus Ro Dah." Also, also, only Morrowind can ruin pteradactyls for everyone forever.

[Antonok]

Also, I don't remember the part of Morrowind where someone went into a portal and fought Cthulhu, or the part where someone kept yelling "Fus Ro Dah." Also, also, only Morrowind can ruin pteradactyls for everyone forever.

No. No. Just no. I refuse to click on that link. Just reading this made that stupid sound start playing in my brain >_>
Yes those things have scarred me for life

[veti]

Also, I don't remember the part of Morrowind where someone went into a portal and fought Cthulhu, or the part where someone kept yelling "Fus Ro Dah." Also, also, only Morrowind can ruin pteradactyls for everyone forever.

<filter type="nostalgia">I like the cliff racers. At least you can see the things.</filter>

[Comet]

I'd debate that. Morrowind lived by an interesting world, a portrait of unique cultures and an ancient conflict between religious sects and political parties. Oblivion and Skyrim traded that for far more generic fantasy cultures and world destruction plots. If Skyrim was like Morrowind, it would have been about the prophecy of the new Dragonborn forging a fourth Empire, and the conflict between the Blades', Greybeards' and Dragon Priests' interpretation of ancient texts and the dragons would mainly have existed to validate your claim on Divine Power.

Man, I would love to play that Skyrim. To be fair, there are parts of the actual Skyrim that indicate at least a part of their writing staff is still on board with taking the dive into imagination land. But, yeah, Morrowind was weird and personal in a way that just isn't going to happen at today's Bethesda.