Thanks for doing this, AniHawk. I had a blast reading through the Gen 6 voting and results.
My favorites (changes pending when I remember stuff):
1. Metal Gear Solid ; I don't try to think too hard on what my favorite game is, but MGS gets an annual replay and that's hard to ignore. It's an incredibly well-made game: the production values blew my mind at the time, the mechanics still feel tight and the core gameplay is still wonderful fun. I love it so damn much.
2. Resident Evil 2 ; Much like my number one, RE2 just feels like the perfect package. I struggle to come up with any legitimate negatives; it achieves everything it sets out to do near flawlessly. Another game which remains undulled by time,
3. Grim Fandango ; My favorite adventure game. The characters, world and story are sophisticated, and the writing is excellent. I don't often find myself caring about atmosphere in a game, but that's because few have any worth noting in comparison to Grim Fandango.
4. Freespace 2 ; I had a hard time stopping myself putting more than one space sim on here. Thanks to X-Wing and Wing Commander, the mid-to-late nineties was jammed with incredible games in the genre. Freespace 2 remains the best space combat simulation to this day. It floors me that this was made nearly two decades ago and I'm still twiddling my thumbs, looking at a gigantic wave of new and upcoming space games that don't seem as good as Freespace 2.
5. Command & Conquer: Red Alert ; It took everything that had blown me away with C&C and cranked it up: better cutscenes, cooler units, expanded base and combat options. Nukes. It's the first game I remember double-dipping on. I bought a PlayStation mouse for this. Worth it.
6. Quake II ; The second ever double-dip. It's the first game I remember modding, getting new skins and sounds from PlanetQuake. I also had upgraded to a 33k modem at this point, so multiplayer was actually a thing for me. The PS version ended up providing some great split-screen deathmatch. Never owning an N64, this was my first taste of multiplayer console shooters before Halo blew that up for me a few years later.
7. Future Cop: L.A.P.D. ; Future Cop is still such a cool concept. It was cool when I was a teenager, it's cool now. A transforming hovercar/mech that's got a flashing cop light on it and missile launchers, used to enforce the law in what I can only imagine is L.A. in the Robocop universe. It played great, too. It also had incredibly good multiplayer.
8. WipEout 2097 (a.k.a. WipEout XL) ; Taking WipEout and making it bigger and brighter. I played far too much of this for my own good. It also has the best licensed soundtrack of any game ever.
9. MechCommander ; My favorite MechWarrior game is just too young for this generation, but I want to give some time to this criminally oft-forgotten gem of a strategy game. I remember playing this not too long after Total Annihilation, and, where TA went macro, MC went micro. You controlled only a handful of mechs and support units in missions and had a great deal of options with them. Mech-on-mech combat was intense and tough, and often had an element of risk/reward as you debated trying to disable your foe so you could salvage their mech later. I also think it still looks beautiful.
10. Ridge Racer Type 4 ; R4 is, among many RR games, the best. It's possibly the best arcade racer (if WipEout's combat mechanics disqualifies it from the genre). Looking at my list, R4 still plays well today, and looked phenomenal to me at the time. It sounded good and had a ton of content, and I still have a blast going back to it now.
x. G-Police
x. Grand Theft Auto
x. Half-Life
x. Quake III
x. Age of Empires
x. Tomb Raider II
x. Colony Wars: Vengeance
x. V-Rally
x. Starlancer
x. Destruction Derby
x. TOCA Touring Car Championships
x. The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall
x. The Curse of Monkey Island
x. Star Wars: Dark Forces
x. MechWarrior 2
x. Baldur's Gate
My favorites (changes pending when I remember stuff):
1. Metal Gear Solid ; I don't try to think too hard on what my favorite game is, but MGS gets an annual replay and that's hard to ignore. It's an incredibly well-made game: the production values blew my mind at the time, the mechanics still feel tight and the core gameplay is still wonderful fun. I love it so damn much.
2. Resident Evil 2 ; Much like my number one, RE2 just feels like the perfect package. I struggle to come up with any legitimate negatives; it achieves everything it sets out to do near flawlessly. Another game which remains undulled by time,
3. Grim Fandango ; My favorite adventure game. The characters, world and story are sophisticated, and the writing is excellent. I don't often find myself caring about atmosphere in a game, but that's because few have any worth noting in comparison to Grim Fandango.
4. Freespace 2 ; I had a hard time stopping myself putting more than one space sim on here. Thanks to X-Wing and Wing Commander, the mid-to-late nineties was jammed with incredible games in the genre. Freespace 2 remains the best space combat simulation to this day. It floors me that this was made nearly two decades ago and I'm still twiddling my thumbs, looking at a gigantic wave of new and upcoming space games that don't seem as good as Freespace 2.
5. Command & Conquer: Red Alert ; It took everything that had blown me away with C&C and cranked it up: better cutscenes, cooler units, expanded base and combat options. Nukes. It's the first game I remember double-dipping on. I bought a PlayStation mouse for this. Worth it.
6. Quake II ; The second ever double-dip. It's the first game I remember modding, getting new skins and sounds from PlanetQuake. I also had upgraded to a 33k modem at this point, so multiplayer was actually a thing for me. The PS version ended up providing some great split-screen deathmatch. Never owning an N64, this was my first taste of multiplayer console shooters before Halo blew that up for me a few years later.
7. Future Cop: L.A.P.D. ; Future Cop is still such a cool concept. It was cool when I was a teenager, it's cool now. A transforming hovercar/mech that's got a flashing cop light on it and missile launchers, used to enforce the law in what I can only imagine is L.A. in the Robocop universe. It played great, too. It also had incredibly good multiplayer.
8. WipEout 2097 (a.k.a. WipEout XL) ; Taking WipEout and making it bigger and brighter. I played far too much of this for my own good. It also has the best licensed soundtrack of any game ever.
9. MechCommander ; My favorite MechWarrior game is just too young for this generation, but I want to give some time to this criminally oft-forgotten gem of a strategy game. I remember playing this not too long after Total Annihilation, and, where TA went macro, MC went micro. You controlled only a handful of mechs and support units in missions and had a great deal of options with them. Mech-on-mech combat was intense and tough, and often had an element of risk/reward as you debated trying to disable your foe so you could salvage their mech later. I also think it still looks beautiful.
10. Ridge Racer Type 4 ; R4 is, among many RR games, the best. It's possibly the best arcade racer (if WipEout's combat mechanics disqualifies it from the genre). Looking at my list, R4 still plays well today, and looked phenomenal to me at the time. It sounded good and had a ton of content, and I still have a blast going back to it now.
x. G-Police
x. Grand Theft Auto
x. Half-Life
x. Quake III
x. Age of Empires
x. Tomb Raider II
x. Colony Wars: Vengeance
x. V-Rally
x. Starlancer
x. Destruction Derby
x. TOCA Touring Car Championships
x. The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall
x. The Curse of Monkey Island
x. Star Wars: Dark Forces
x. MechWarrior 2
x. Baldur's Gate