[GasProblem]

I was such a big Pokemon fan as a kid. And here it was, a game where you could actually find and catch your own Pokemon. I still remember the smell of the store where I bought the game. No game is going to beat the nostalgia factor. The excitement I had for it made it the greatest game of all times for me.

And my 2nd greatest game was Rollercoaster Tycoon, damn, the fun I had with that series.

[glaurung]

[StuBurns]

It's been Journey since I played it, but that's still fairly johnny-come-lately, Ico was my favorite for much of the ten years before that.

[Wildesy]

Toss up between Deus Ex and;




Purely in terms of gameplay, something like Dungeon Keeper or Red Alert comes very close to the top for me, although I could never actually label them as my favourite games of all time.

It's cool to see FF9 getting some love, that game is an absolute gem. It has a massive spot in my heart, first Final Fantasy I ever finished and easily my most beloved.

[Raide]

Torn between PSO and Diablo 2.

[spidye]

I was such a big Pokemon fan as a kid. And here it was, a game where you could actually find and catch your own Pokemon. I still remember the smell of the store where I bought the game. No game is going to beat the nostalgia factor. The excitement I had for it made it the greatest game of all times for me. And my 2nd greatest game was Rollercoaster Tycoon, damn, the fun I had with that series.

oh wow, there's a clone of me out there.

[Ichor]

I'm amazed so many of you can decide your favorite game so easily. I'd probably have a list one hundred long if I tried.

[Dark Schala]

Genso Suikoden II, no question. I'll just repost what I said in the Essential RPGs thread:

I don’t think I can come up with the proper words to justify why I like this game so much. I’ll try, but I feel like anything I come up with won’t do it justice.

This is my favourite game ever. I consider both it and Genso Suikoden to be sister games, but essentially, Genso Suikoden II built upon the foundations that Genso Suikoden put into place and perfected many of those foundations (some of which were later built upon in subsequent Genso Suikoden titles). Both games have quite a bit of parallels, but Genso Suikoden II is essentially what Genso Suikoden wanted to pull off but couldn’t at the time.

The presentation of this game is superb, and what I mean is Fumi Ishikawa’s gorgeous artwork, the emotional and ethnically-influenced Miki Higashino/Keiko Fukami soundtrack, and the amazing, amazing sprite animation. The sprites are so detailed and their animations are among the best I’ve seen in a videogame… maybe even the best I’ve seen, period. The sprites were clearly made with the best intention of making the narrative flow well, communicate expressions well, and delight players when the characters have the chance to do.

The narrative is what most people remember from this game—a narrative that includes subject matter such as implied rape, child soldiers (ie: children getting involved in what should be mainly adult affairs), social justice, war, tragedy, and politics. What’s great about the narrative is that the characters are so memorable and well-developed. Characters such as Viktor, Nanami, Pilika, Jowy and Shu are well-written, have good dialogue, and are memorable not just based on what they say, but their actions, their reactions (Pilika, in particular, as a character who experienced symptoms of psychological shock and PTSD, and her behaviour throughout the game until the halfway point is interesting to observe), and what happens to them throughout the narrative. Luca Blight is a character who needs no introduction because of his brutal war and killing tactics. His story is perhaps one of the most tragic of all the characters.

Speaking of characters, this was the first game where characters from the previous game’s cameos were expected and players looked forward to seeing how older characters developed. This began a tradition in the Suikoden series where cameo appearances were expected. Flik, Viktor and Apple are characters from the previous game who demonstrated minor immaturity, but in Genso Suikoden II, they’re more mature and battle-hardened, and are thus more able to take up the sword readily to get things done, no questions asked. If a player had a save from the first game, this would introduce dialogue changes, and will also net them another special playable character (whom I enjoy using a lot because of his amazing stats, omg).

The battle system is lightning-fast, and the animations for unite attacks and regular attacks are really great to watch in action. The spell effects were wonderful to watch, and still are. A newer system which allowed the player to equip up to three runes on each party member allowed for better flexibility and more customization around weaker party members to make them stronger and more useful in combat. Higher-level runes such as the Cyclone Rune or the Rage Rune can be combined with other higher-level elemental runes (as long as they are elementally-compatible; you can't try to combine Rage and Flowing because they are opposite elements) to produce devastating combination spells as well.

Genso Suikoden II also has my favourite large-scale battle type. It’s basically an SRPG system, and the more characters you have, the more units you are able to use (and the diversity of units increase as you rotate your units around). It’s unfortunate that this model was not used in other mainline Genso Suikoden titles, because this was perfect. The Genso Suikoden II fanmade homage/clone introduces a ranking system, which probably should have been the next step in evolving the large-scale battles.

There’s more I can say about this game, and I can write pages and pages. But Genso Suikoden II is quite important to me as a game. It has heart and soul. I think everyone should play it.

Chrono Trigger, Mother 3, Majora's Mask, Yoshi's Island, and Sonic 3+K are runners-up.

[mr_sockochris]

[Xanadu]

[Sojgat]

I can't decide, but I know it would have Pac-Man in the name somewhere.

[Darryl]

I'm amazed so many of you can decide your favorite game so easily. I'd probably have a list one hundred long if I tried.

I wish I could enjoy 100 games as much as I've enjoyed my top 3-4 games.

[Jay Sosa]

Bubsy 3D

[dragonballjoseph]

[televator]

Want to play, but can't haz! Damn you Lucas Arts! Put it on GOG ffs!

[yuzu]

No contest here.

Yes! Totally agree with you!

[GZ!]

Wowed me at prolly 12 or 13 years!

Runners up: Zelda: AlltP, Super Metroid, CastleVania 4, Metal Gear Solid 1.

[bede-x]

It's hard to pick just one with so many good ones available. Fifteen years ago I would have gone with this:



And I'm gonna go with it again today. It changed fighting games forever, but it's influence wasn't just limited to its own genre. The succes had an effect on the composition of the coin-up landscape and even home systems were affected. It wasn't Pong-important, but it was certainly a milestone.

Unfortunately, fighting games never really went anywhere new afterwards. Sure, there was a Bushido Blade here or a Power Stone there, but never anything with the same defining impact and most fighting games were content to just add more moves to their new iterations, somehow believing that that was the way to add more layers to the games. As if games got better by having 11 moves instead of 10. Sadly, that's where we're stuck today.

I will say that Nintendo has been the source of most of my OMG gaming moments.

Same here. It would probably be hard to argue that Nintendo isn't the greatest developer the industry has yet seen. They've been here so long, made so many different games and influenced and moved the industry in new directions so many times. If this had been a top ten list more than half my games would probably be from Nintendo. Oh my, I love their games and almost feel guilty for not picking one for my favorite.

[Saiyu]

For the multiplayer.

*FUCK* I forgot about SCCT. Each mode was great and the versus was godly

[spliced]

Super Mario 64.

A great core game with totally new and fun gameplay and blow you mind graphics in one cart.

[Chunky]

Hmm, impossible to pick one, but on a personal level I'd probably say Cave Story. The music is uplifting, emotional, energising, heart-wrenching; all with the most basic tools available.
The characters are all memorable and wonderfully sprited. There isn't so much story as there is a platform for all you to meet all these eccentric rabbits, villains and bars of soap.
I love it ‹3

Will chuck in:
Super Mario Galaxy 2/Donkey Kong Country Returns as most visually stunning and fun to play games I've played
Earthbound/Dragon Quest 5/Tactics Ogre/Nier for best stories in the medium.

[StayDead]

For story? Steins;Gate without a doubt.

For gameplay? Probably Mario 64.

[Glorious_Paradox]

When I saw the title, I thought "heh, a Deus Ex thread, cool", and am happy to see it mentioned so many times.

Seriously, for anyone who hasn't played this game: try to get past the first clunky level, try not to be bothered by the archaic graphics (although the fanmade texture-packs make it bearable), and stick with it. When you're done, you might not necessarily agree that it's the best game ever made (although it's very possible), but I can guarantee you'll feel that it was 100% worth experiencing.

Runners up: Dark Souls, Zelda: OOT and LTTP (tie) and Metroid Prime and Super Metroid (also tie).

[MoogleWizard]

[Dyni Crippler]

Deus Ex, easily.

[Scullibundo]

Shenmue II of course! An absolute masterpiece that will never be topped!

This a thousand time this. No game has even come close.

[ForzaFerrari]

Final Fantasy XI

[Collider]

Its a hard question, picking one is impossible for me.

I am a 00s gamer, So will go with MP2, AC2, HL2EP1/2 (know GAF hates it, but I loved it very much). Also Braid was exceptionally good for me.

[theRizzle]

Mike Tyson's Punch Out for sure. I still remember the day I bought it. Stayed up all night with my dad playing.

[Randdalf]

Runners up: Lego Racers, Golden Sun, Half-Life 2, Age of Empires II

[Acquiescence]

Aside from the shoddy translation job, it's just perfection on so many levels.

[snoopeasystreet]

This is probably another thread in itself but if you were asked "what do you think is the greatest game of all time?", would you give the same answer?

[Tricky I Shadow]

This a thousand time this. No game has even come close.

This guy gets it.

[Don'tBeWeird]

[fart town usa]

It's gotta be Ocarina of Time. I grew up playing zelda games but OOT transported me to another world like no other game ever had. It was great, I still play through at least twice each year.

Honorable mentions: ff6, Albert Odyssey: legend of eldean, super Mario world, Mario 64, Sam and Max hit the road.

[PowderedToast]

Genso Suikoden II, no question. I'll just repost what I said in the Essential RPGs thread:

damn, this makes me jelly. want to play II so bad, konami don't make it easy =(

[manueldelalas]

Zelda OOT definitely.

The only time I've ever had incredibly high expectations about a game, and it managed to completely shatter those high expectations and surpass everything known at the time.

That game had everything, character growth and development, incredible dungeons, unexpected plot twists (Sheik is Zelda!, who saw that coming?), and the incredible hookshot that let you hook into ANYTHING made of wood. It had a lot of weird characters and different stories inside.

Travelling with Epona was something else entirely. And spending hours fishing was awesome.

Really amazing game at the time, and an all time classic, since it's completely playable today, and still the unsurpassed Zelda experience (as demonstrated by the reactions to the remake).

[Vorg]

Yeah probably this along with Demon's + Dark souls. Nothing comes close to the souls games this gen imo.

[Brimstone]

Star Castle arcade game.

[Alrix]

hard to number them, but:






It's hard for me to rank the Zelda series in terms of my personal taste, every time I play a new one I love it more than the last until I play the previous ones again, so I just love them all massively and equally

Honorable mentions:
Super Mario RPG - This is the game that got me into video gaming. Nothing else to say, it was magical.

Pokemon Gold - I was late on Red/Blue, since I picked up Red after it was already popular and obviously loved it but with Gold I got it when it came out and it blew me away.

Kingdom Hearts 2 - Absolutely loved the FF/Disney mashups. Looking back the story was pretty wtf but that didn't bother me at the time. Will probably replay before KH3D.

Mass Effect 3 - Despite the ending, loved the hell outta that game. It goes in my top tier.

[KaizorPenguin]

Ocarina of Time, no doubt. I first played this in 2003, as I got the Wind Waker LE for free along with my Gamecube. All my friends told me the game was shit(I was born in 93, btw, and all my friends wanted to play "mature" games), so I went in with very low expectations.
The game blew my away, and it still stands as my favorite game of all time. The world, the characters and the gameplay were so good compared to anything else I'd played, and I was hooked.
I usually replay the game about once a year, and it always reminds me why I love playing videogames. While I've played and loved all the later Zeldas to death, none have made me feel like I did the first time through Ocarina of Time.

[pompidu]

The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. No shooter will ever come close.

99% of the reason I was a virgin throughout high school. I was playing 50 hours a week on this game. Indeed the greatest game.

[KevinCow]

Greatest game: Tetris.

Favorite game: A tie between Metroid Prime and Donkey Kong Country 2. One or the other may edge slightly ahead depending on my mood.

[AHA-Lambda]

Absolutely, Deus Ex.

[toddhunter]

Easily.

Also yet another stealth 'make me feel old' thread.

[Blablurn]

MGS2

1 cracked my view on games, 2 destroyed it. what a fine game.

[Glass Rebel]

My single greatest game? That's pretty hard.

Sin & Punishment 2 is my favourite game ever but the cutscenes are rather weak and drag the experience down a little bit. I'd also have preferred some jetpack-less levels like in the original.

Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age do everything right in my book when it comes to JRPGs except the dialogue which is infuriating sometimes. Expecially when you're on your 5th playthrough. They're also 2 games so it's kinda cheating.

Panzer Dragoon Saga is an incredible experience through and through but the graphics are terrible beyond comprehension which is a goddamn shame because I love the colour-scheme, the artstyle, the atmosphere... such an unique game which suffers from the inferior tech of its time and I'm by no means a graphics whore. If this ever receives a remake it'd probably become my favourite game ever.

But as it stands now Super Metroid and Half-Life 2: Episode 2 are probably closest to perfection as far as I am concerned.

[Steve McQueen]

Another vote. Awesome game that really blew me away. It's fighting for my personal top 1 spot with HALO CE and Super Mario Galaxy.

[Chinner]

i don't know :(

[Dark Sun Cetra]

Totally. Close second IMO is Dark Souls.