Author Topic: Top 25 Video Games Lists! v. CableX's "Worse Than My Top25 VG Music" (pg. 62)  (Read 231549 times)

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Online ReaperKK

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Such a great list, reliving a lot of great games. I remember playing CS through beta starting at beta 5, I remember spending middle school nights with my new cable internet playing dust and nuke.

I only played BioShock 1 last year after playing Infinite. I can't believe I missed out this game when it was released.

Offline The King in Crimson

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Such a great list, reliving a lot of great games. I remember playing CS through beta starting at beta 5, I remember spending middle school nights with my new cable internet playing dust and nuke.

I only played BioShock 1 last year after playing Infinite. I can't believe I missed out this game when it was released.
Thanks. Glad to see you're enjoying. :)

13. Chrono Trigger (SNES: 1995)
Chrono Trigger is one of those games that regularly appears on these sorts of lists. The words 'great,' 'masterpiece,' and 'defining' are typically used to describe it. With all of this hype surrounding it, it would not be unwarranted to discover that Chrono Trigger does not live up to the lofty praises a generation of nerds have continually heaped upon it. Thankfully, Chrono Trigger does not collapse beneath the weight, nay it does not even stumble.

For one unversed in the legacy of Chrono Trigger, its name should at least hint at the fact that there is a time-travel element in the game's story. Chrono Trigger's epic story stretches from the distant annals of a dinosaur-ruled past to the forlorn and ruined wastes of a post-apocalyptic future (why is the future always so shitty?). Each time period has it's own story and characters and is connected to the others by the overarching story with the characters, villains, and twists unfolding across a millennia. It's incredibly well done and it never seems to get stale. Just as one time period starts to get a little boring, you are whisked off to a new one with new characters, plots, and enemies awaiting you. I won't get too in depth about the story, mostly because it's sprawling and epic and awesome in all the right ways, but I will give a very brief synopsis. You play Chrono a young boy in a pseudo-steampunk era kingdom and you and your friends accidentally get thrown back in time to the middle ages. The cast of characters you encounter run the gamut from spoiled princess, techy nerd girl, robot, frog knight, emo mage, and cavegirl. If that rundown doesn't make you want to play, then frankly, I don't know what will.

Like many other JRPG's from the SNES era, Chrono Trigger features a turn based battle system. You issue orders to Chrono and the current members of your party and each character has different strengths and access to different abilities. Unlike other JRPG's (mainly the Final Fantasy series) there are no annoying random encounters. Most enemies are clearly visible before you encounter them and some you can skip past if you're careful or lucky enough. The battles involve a bit more tactical acumen than is normal for most turn based JRPG's. Not only do you have to manage resources, but characters and enemies will gradually reposition themselves during the battles, making hitting them with area of effect attacks more difficult or even easier sometimes. During battles characters can also combine their abilities together to create one, devastating combo. This means that sometimes it might be better to hold off on an attack until you can synch several characters together at once. It's a very simple system, but it's surprising how rewarding it can be.

Chrono Trigger is probably my favorite JRPG of all time which is made all the more impressive that it's time travel-focused story doesn't drive me bonkers. That's a feat in itself really! For its reward, Chrono Trigger gets a flux capacitor-infused recommendation for any time travel junkies, fans of protagonists who have little to say but much ass to kick, and anyone who likes to pepper their vernacular with thees, thous, and ribbits.


Offline ThatOneGuy2112

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Awwwwwww yeah :hat

Everything about this game is done so well and so right--the memorable music, the addicting gameplay, the captivating story, and the stunning visuals. I love Final Fantasy VI and all, but Chrono Trigger really takes the cake on this one. It's in my top 3 of all time, no question. :tup

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Can't believe I've never played Chrono Trigger. Will have to remedy that, sounds fantastic.

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Offline Lynxo

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Can't believe I've never played Chrono Trigger. Will have to remedy that, sounds fantastic.
I envy you, you're in for a treat. The story may not seem like much at first, but after the main villain is introduced, it grows and grows until it's just a huge as any old school Final Fantasy. It's so awesome. :heart
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Offline The King in Crimson

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Can't believe I've never played Chrono Trigger. Will have to remedy that, sounds fantastic.
Do it. It's still such a great game and definitely worth the time investment.

12. WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos (PC: 2002)
WarCraft 2: Tides of Darkness has the distinction of being the very second game I got for the PC (the first was Sim City 2000) and I credit it with turning me into the primarily PC gamer that I am today. I loved WarCraft 2 and when I heard that Blizzard was finally planning a sequel, I ate up every bit of information that dribbled out in the intervening months. When it finally dropped, I was in heaven. WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos was clearly the successor to WarCraft 2. The roots were still plainly visible but the trunk and branches were all different enough to make it a new kind of tree.

All of the games in the WarCraft series (aside from World of Warcraft) are real-time strategy games and they helped to establish and make the RTS genre as successful and ubiquitous as it was at the end of 90's and the beginning of the 2000's. Unlike its predecessor, WarCraft 3 takes some of the design decisions from StarCraft and features four, unique races, each one fairly different and largely balanced against each other. Both the humans and the orcs return from the previous games while the night elves and the undead are the new kids on the block (not the band...). WarCraft 3 also features a huge focus on heroes. Your heroes gain levels and get access to new abilities as the battles wage on. They are a huge focus in how you plan and fight battles and, in the latter stages of games, become the centerpieces of the game. Some people did not care for the huge focus on the heroes, but I really enjoyed it and thought it added both a logical and exciting layer to a genre that was becoming a bit... staid and predictable at this point.

The story continues the broadening conflict between the humans and orcs and picks up several years after the events of WarCraft 2. The story unfolds across four different campaigns. In the first, with the orcs in exodus to some mysterious destination the humans face a new, unknown threat:  the undead scourge. In the second campaign, the undead continue their swath of destruction across the human lands of the Alliance. The third focuses on the orcs as they attempt to establish themselves in a new, unknown land and come into conflict with its native populace. The last deals with the night elves and brings all the dangling plot threads from the previous four campaigns to a close. Overall the story really isn't anything new, but it's told well and the characters all have enough depth and the missions are fairly varied and interesting enough that the game never gets boring. Sometimes you might be given a small and limited squad of troops to achieve your objectives, sometimes you might be tasked with establishing a base and destroying the enemy, and other times you might be given the simple objective to hold out and survive against increasingly insane waves of enemies.

The game really comes to life in its multiplayer capabilities. Teaming up with some friends against the computer or going all free for all against your buds is equally fun. When the tried and true game types fail to excite then WarCraft 3 comes with an impressively robust editor that allows you to make maps and even completely new and unique gametypes. It was from these polygonal loins that DOTA was born, for better or worse.

I've kinda moved away from the RTS genre lately, but there was a time when it was my preferred gametype. I'd play any and everyone I could get my hands on and WarCraft 3, even though it came out when the genre was waning, was (still is!) one of my favorites. If I had enough wood and lumber I'd give WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos the recommendation it deserves to anyone who enjoys furiously clicking on peasants, people who use the words daboo, zug-gug, and skooboo in their daily lexicon, and peon-rushing douchebags.


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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #743 on: November 01, 2014, 12:18:31 PM »
Cool thing, I do love strategy games, but I do absolutely suck at them :lol .

Offline Lynxo

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #744 on: November 02, 2014, 05:40:25 AM »
To this day, I'm still using the word "zug-zug" when someone asks me to do something.
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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #745 on: November 02, 2014, 07:00:36 AM »
Cool thing, I do love strategy games, but I do absolutely suck at them :lol .

This. I enjoy these types of games for the skirmishes and campaigns on easy but on the difficult settings or playing online I am terrible.

Offline The King in Crimson

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #746 on: November 02, 2014, 07:41:08 PM »
Meant to get this up last night but I got side-tracked by other things. Sorry bout that.

11. Baldur's Gate (PC: 1998)
I can vividly remember the months leading up to Baldur's Gate's release. I saw some screenshots in a gaming magazine and, for some reason, I became obsessed with the game. I had to get it when it came out. Why? No idea, but it was going to be mine. I knew nothing about Dungeons and Dragons and the Forgotten Realms were less Forgotten than completely unknown to me. Yet, still I was obsessed. The game finally released and being the poor, High School student that I was at the time, I had to wait until I finally had enough money to buy it for myself. One of my classmates got the game and he would spend the lunch period telling me all about the escapades of his party up and down the Sword Coast all while I seethed in jealousy and frustration.

Finally the day came when I held that dirt brown colored box in my hands. Slowly I fed each of its five CD's (!!) into my computer and went through the long, laborious installation process. The game recommended a 120mhz processor but I only had a 90 at the time. I didn't care. It didn't need to run smooth, it just needed to run. Once the installation was complete, I booted up the game and lost myself in the rich, fantasy world of the Forgotten Realms. Since my processor wasn't entirely up to snuff, the game ran rather poorly, the loading screens were extra long, and sometimes it would take a while for the game to catch up with the action. It wasn't ideal, but I didn't care. I played all 80 hours of the game like this.

Of all the games on this list, Baldur's Gate is very much a diamond in the rough. It has flaws, many of which annoy me very, very much and make me question why I continue to replay this game over and over again. Some parts are overly repetitive, many of the side quests are simple and boring fetch quests or kill quests, and very few of your party members have any sort of depth to them at all. It's buggy, it's long, and it's brutally, unforgivingly difficult at times and yet, it's number eleven on my list of my top twenty-five favorite games of all time. Why?  Because, despite all of those very apparent problems, it's still a whole lot of fun.

Baldur's Gate a tactical, real-time RPG set in the world of the Forgotten Realms. It uses a modified version of the 2E Advanced Dungeons and Dragons system for combat, character creation, and task resolution. That really didn't mean much to me at the time, but nowadays, whenever I replay the game, I find many of its restrictions irritating. Despite the limitations of the rules system, you can easily play the game without worrying about figuring out your THAC0 or saving throws. Your class and race confer certain benefits and drawbacks that will dictate how much ass you will kick and in what way it will be kicked. Most of that stuff is largely in the background, so you can just focus on the important things: the story, the characters, and the combat.

The story is typical epic fantasy stuff. You're an orphan, blah blah blah, mysterious armored dude wants you dead, yada yada yada, conspiracy, secrets, and the answers can only be unearthed by assembling a motley party of adventurers and going forth into the wilderness, crushing evil, taking its treasure and experience points. Some of the very first fights you'll get yourself involved in will probably end up with you and your party members dead because at this point, you are a level 1 schmuck venturing out into a world full of evil wizards, demons, dragons, gibberlings, bandits and a whole slew of other, nasty things that eat level 1 schmucks for breakfast. This means that when you finally take down that group of bandits that has been killing you over and over again there's an enormous sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. There's also a real sense of progression as you gain levels and get more and more powerful, threats that you once struggled with become easier and less dangerous. This makes it really feel like you are becoming the whispered Hero of the Sword Coast, plague of bandits and smasher of evil. The story may not be revolutionary but it does pack some great set pieces and twists along the way. The villains are all nasty enough that, by the end of the game, you'll want to take them down just as much as your characters will.

The combat is where the game shines the most though. It occurs in real-time but you can pause the action at any moment to issue orders to your party members. This makes most encounters feel a bit more tactical than they normally would. And you're going to need to stretch those tactical muscles because rushing straight on into most fights is going to result in revisiting the loading screen many, many times. You'll need to prepare which spells you think you might need ahead of time and buff appropriately lest you get caught with your proverbial codpiece around your ankles.

I could keep going on and on, but this is already long enough so I'll cut it short here. The short of it is Baldur's Gate is a flawed but somehow still fantastic fantasy RPG. It's fantastic enough that I've played through it fully at least four times and the game is, I think, around at least 40 hours long. I don't ever want to see how much time I've spent on this game, lest I start feeling really, really sad for myself. Regardless, it gets a +3 in the Recommendation non-weapon proficiency skill for anyone who has ever wanted to delve into dangerous dungeons, people who have always wanted their own giant miniature space hamster, and those who have always wanted to try their hand at beating the crap out of Elminster (and failing miserably...).


Online ReaperKK

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #747 on: November 02, 2014, 08:33:32 PM »
I started chrono trigger but never finished it. I'll have to fix that one day.

I have some great fun with wc3 and never played BG

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #748 on: November 02, 2014, 09:01:58 PM »
Chrono Trigger again? This game must be good, eh?

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Offline Lynxo

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #749 on: November 03, 2014, 03:49:36 AM »
OMG, I know I keep repeating myself here, but I LOVE YOUR LIST!
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Offline The King in Crimson

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #750 on: November 03, 2014, 10:43:17 PM »
OMG, I know I keep repeating myself here, but I LOVE YOUR LIST!
If you love PC games from around the end of the 90's through the early 2000's, I reckon you will continue to love it. :)

And now for a game that was certainly not on the PC.

10. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64: 1998)
Ocarina of Time is the landmark video game that transported Link from the world of topdown, isometric 2D to a full on 3D action/adventure/platformer and, in my opinion, it does so very successfully and much more so than, say, Mario 64 (so controversial!). Ocarina retains the series focus on exploration, puzzle solving, and combat but it makes full use of the 3D environments while doing so. Some may criticize the game for being a bit too handholdy with the inclusions of both Navi (fucking Navi!) and the Z-targeting, but while Navi does have the tendency to point out the obvious, the Z-targeting system keeps the combat from devolving into a mess of swinging cameras and obscured enemies. Additionally, the Z-targeting system allows for the game to incorporate some fun and involved fights, such as the stalfos duels, that might otherwise not be possible. It's rather ingenious how such a simple mechanism can be so elegant when implemented well. With the focus on the z-targeting mechanic, combat becomes less of a ferocious clash of quickly traded blows and more of a slow, patient game of wait for the right moment. Some might criticize this aspect of the gameplay but I think it works perfectly.

Like in Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time focuses more time on the story than the first two games. The story basically boils down to an excuse to explore a bunch of dungeons, find treasure, and fight bosses but it's well done for what it is. Like the Light World/Dark World mechanic in Link to the Past, Ocarina allows you to switch between time periods; the peaceful and pastoral Hyrule of young Link's time period and the dark, ruined, and semi-post apocalyptic Hyrule of his near future. Switching between time periods becomes essential to the latter part of the game, as performing tasks in Young Link's timeline unlocks areas that Adult Link would normally find impassable. Ocarina also includes a massive amount of optional side-quests to perform that will likely drive the completionists absolutely bonkers.

I have very little to complain about when it comes to Ocarina.  I guess, maybe it's a little too easy? Everything else is just so massively good, the dungeon design, the music (the Forest Temple theme, I could listen to that for hours...), the enemies, the combat, the bosses. Ocarina of Time gets a full heart containers worth of recommendations for anyone who gets a perverse pleasure out of making Link fall from ridiculous heights, folks who love watching Darunia dance, and people whom will never find the words 'Hey... Listen!' ever getting annoying.


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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #751 on: November 03, 2014, 10:49:37 PM »
FINALLY a game I can agree with! :lol
One of my favourite games of all time because as you said, everything is just so good. Is it too easy? I'm a pretty casual gamer, especially these days, so that's worked in its favour for me if anything. :tup
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Offline ThatOneGuy2112

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #752 on: November 03, 2014, 11:30:08 PM »
This and Majora's Mask are probably the two most important games of my childhood. :tup Everything about them just blew me away and they're still fun to play. A true masterpiece that will likely never tire on me.

Offline Bolsters

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #753 on: November 04, 2014, 12:58:49 AM »
One of the greatest. :tup

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #754 on: November 04, 2014, 02:09:10 AM »
I bought the special edition of Wind Waker to my Gamecube, just so I could play this. :tup
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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #755 on: November 04, 2014, 03:05:38 AM »
I bought the special edition of Wind Waker to my Gamecube, just so I could play this. :tup

Me too. I still haven't finished Master Quest. I think I made it to the Spirit Temple?
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Offline Lynxo

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #756 on: November 04, 2014, 03:12:25 AM »
I bought the special edition of Wind Waker to my Gamecube, just so I could play this. :tup

Me too. I still haven't finished Master Quest. I think I made it to the Spirit Temple?
I bought it just a few weeks ago and haven't gotten around to play it yet.  :lol I used to emulate it when I was younger, feels good to actually play it properly now.
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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #757 on: November 04, 2014, 08:01:58 AM »
I have the 3DSremake, but haven't finished it :P

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #758 on: November 05, 2014, 06:04:12 PM »
Talking about remakes, Majora's Mask for 3DS was confirmed today by Nintendo.
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Offline The King in Crimson

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #759 on: November 05, 2014, 07:14:44 PM »
9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (X-Box 360/PC: 2011)
Skyrim is yet another Bethesda game in which a giant, sprawling world calls out to the inner kleptomaniac in each of us to come and steal all of its shit. Like Morrowind, Skyrim takes place in the fantasy setting of Tamriel, specifically the province of Skyrim which is all vikings and dragons and big, honking axes. While not as banal as Oblivion, Skyrim's setting is still fairly typical fantasy faire and doesn't really hold much of a candle to Morrowind's bizarre and alien landscape. Thankfully, Skyrim succeeds in other areas. For one, finally, the leveling system has been unborked. No longer can you accidentally level yourself into utter uselessness just because you don't know how to game the system. The combat is much better too. What it comes down to for me is that while Morrowind is more interesting to explore, Skyrim is much more fun to play.

Like Oblivion and Morrowind, Skyrim is filled to the brim with things to do: monsters to kill, quests to undertake, and loot to... loot. It provides enough of a guiding hand so that you'll always know where you need to go... eventually but it leaves the getting there up to you. You can ignore the main quest for as long as you wish and just head off on your own to do whatever you want to.

While there is a whole helluva lot to do in Skyrim, I don't have that much to say about it. Why? Well, almost everything I said about Morrowind could apply to Skyrim so there's really no reason to cover the same ground again. I usually vacillate between which Elder Scrolls game I prefer, but I think it just comes down to fact that no matter how intriguing I find Morrowind, I much prefer to play Skyrim. It plays so much better and the absolutely snazzy graphics help with the immersion factor. Even un-modded the game is beautiful.

I give a loud Fus-Ro-Recommendation to Skyrim to any wannabe vikings, weekend dragon slayers, or those who manage to still adventure despite that arrow they took to the knee.


Offline ThatOneGuy2112

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #760 on: November 06, 2014, 12:05:01 AM »
Talking about remakes, Majora's Mask for 3DS was confirmed today by Nintendo.

I literally yelped and salivated with joy for that.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #761 on: November 06, 2014, 01:40:43 AM »
Skyrim is a fantastic game, I played it for a long time. However, the one thing that made me basically stop playing it is the combat. It becomes so dull after a while.

Offline Lynxo

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #762 on: November 06, 2014, 01:54:47 AM »
I don't even wanna know how many hours I've put into Skyrim. Ridiculous game. I even got the über edition for it:





 :metal
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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #763 on: November 06, 2014, 08:15:44 AM »
I think I spent around 100+ hours on my first game, and 60+ on the second, DLCs included. Great game.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #764 on: November 06, 2014, 08:23:37 AM »
I put in almost 300 hours on my first game. My launch-model ps3 got the ylod and that was that. I tried starting the game again and stopped playing before I got to the first checkpoint.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #765 on: November 06, 2014, 06:39:25 PM »
I put around 200 hours into this game, and still play it every once in a while. The only issue was that the PS3 version became unplayable once the file size approached the double digits. It became even more of a slideshow than the Berserk series. Luckily, Bethesda fixed this issue... after nearly half a year. Still a great game, though.
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Offline The King in Crimson

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #766 on: November 09, 2014, 10:54:08 AM »
8. Mass Effect / Mass Effect 2 / Mass Effect 3 (X-Box 360: 2007/2010/2012)
To those who say that I'm cheating by putting three games in one slot, I respond by saying "Tough cookies." This is my list and I reserve the right to cheat if I want to!

Regardless of the cheating (or lackthereof) in this entry, for those who have been living under an especially large and internet-less rock for the past seven years, Mass Effect is the highly successful third-person shooter/RPG trilogy wherein players take the role of Commander Shepard, certified human badass, in a distant future filled with aliens, technomagic errr I mean 'biotics,' and killer synthetics. Players can customize Shepard in an incredible number of ways, from choosing the gender of their hero (female Shepard ftw!), her class, skills, backstory, companions, and even a limited number of romance options. You can build Shepard into a stone-cold killer who is ruthless and pragmatic when it comes to accomplishing her mission or you can make Shepard into a bleeding heart 'save and help everyone' space hippy if you wish.

The great thing about Mass Effect is how successfully it manages to combine all of these elements into a cohesive and enthralling game. Okay, well, maybe in the first game the shooting was a bit, erm, clunky but the subsequent games really refined the action to the point that movement and shooting in Mass Effect 3 is incredibly fluid and fun. Each class and character has their own abilities, strengths and weaknesses which make them more suited to certain situations or tasks. Playing the game as a sneaky, sniping infiltrator, for example, is going to feel very different from playing the game as a shotgun-toting, charge-happy vanguard (the ONLY way to play the game), while bringing Liara and Tali along with you on a mission is going to mean you'll be more effective against certain enemies and less effective against others.

The story grabs you from the first few minutes of Mass Effect and doesn't loosen its grip until the final (and controversial) seconds of Mass Effect 3. And this is the reason that I ranked all three games together. Each game can be enjoyed independently, but it's together where their greatness truly shines. Character moments in the final game won't be as poignant if you haven't spent the last two games getting to know the characters and experiencing the story with them.  And the game is filled to the brim with great and interesting characters that both help to round out your team and add flavor to the setting. Characters like Tali, Wrex, The Illusive Man, Saren, Garrus, Mordin, Joker, Legion, and Captain Anderson are just a small number of examples that I could name.

I do have some issues with the games, each one has its own problems in my opinion, but overall, I think the trilogy holds together amazingly well and it is a great accomplishment on the part of Bioware. If I had to rank them (and well, this is a list so I kinda do...), I'd rank them thusly: Mass Effect >= Mass Effect 2 > Mass Effect 3. While Mass Effect 3 is probably my least favorite due to some story reasons, it is probably my favorite for pure gameplay fun, but for the purposes of this list each game is part of a greater whole, where the weaknesses in one are made up for by the strengths in another. For this reason, the Mass Effect trilogy gets my endorsement for anyone who likes Star Wars but thinks that years of shit movies and shit novels have made the setting a bit shit, people for whom the Renegade option is the only option, and those who love to say "I'm Commander Shepherd and this is my favorite game on the Citadel."




I'll see about getting the next one up, hopefully later tonight.

Offline ariich

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #767 on: November 09, 2014, 11:57:29 AM »
Incredible series!

I don't think you're cheating, the games make up a single storyline.

Ariich is a freak, or somehow has more hours in the day than everyone else.
I be am boner inducing.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #768 on: November 09, 2014, 01:00:39 PM »
I'm planning to buy the trilogy for PS3 soon. These games look bloody good.

Offline The King in Crimson

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. The King in Crimson's time to rule (pg. 19)
« Reply #769 on: November 09, 2014, 10:42:02 PM »
I'm planning to buy the trilogy for PS3 soon. These games look bloody good.
Do it. They are. :)

7. X-Com: UFO Defense (PC: 1994)
X-Com is a turn-based, tactical strategy game that hails from the distant, sepia-toned and pixilated years of the early 90's. Come join me, dear reader, and let me regale you with tales of massacred soldiers, alien invasions, hidden movement, and psychic assaults.

Despite being twenty years old, X-Com is still, way ahead of its time. The basic gist of X-Com is that the Earth is under attack by aliens and you are given the go-ahead from the various nations of the Earth to start a force capable of defending against the aliens and, eventually, taking the fight to them. That's it.  That's the story. There are no characters, no real plot twists, just this basic setup, and a series of randomized encounters that propel the action and keep the game moving.

X-Com combines two separate, but totally integrated games. The first is the world view, where you have a wide, encompassing view of the Earth. From here, you build up a base, manage your money, construct supplies, train troops, keep the various nations of the world happy so that they will continue to supply you with funds and manpower. There's a lot to do and, as with most ancient PC games, the UI is supremely unhelpful. There are a lot of buttons and no help on what any of them do. Getting into X-Com is not an easy task for the uninitiated.

The second game within X-Com are the various isometric, turn-based scenarios that you will undertake. Such scenarios involve alien craft that you shoot down and investigate, terror missions where aliens attack civilian areas, base assaults where you find and destroy hidden alien bases and also, when the aliens finally have enough of you fucking with their shit, they will assault your base. Yes, the aliens are bastards, but that is just the tip of the alien-bastardry iceberg.

The aliens that your soldiers will face are a varied lot, starting with the lowly greys (called sectoids) that you will encounter throughout the early stages of the game to the fucking ethereals that will make you hate anything and everything in the late stages of the game. Seriously, fuck you ethereals. Even the sectoids, the alien chumps of the X-Com universe, are not without their tricks. Their commanders often possess psychic powers that they can use to drive your soldiers into states of panic and fear. Other aliens include the floating, biomechanical cyberdiscs, the flying floaters (redundant word is redundant?), the dumb and tough mutons who fill the role of the space brutes, snakemen, and the chrysalids. Ugh, the chrysalids. Your first encounter with chrysalids will be one you will remember. I have never seen a mission turn from good to omg-my-whole-squad-is-dead faster than when chrysalids are involved. For a chrysalid, think of a giant, bipedal insect that, when it bites its victim, the venom turns the creature into a mindless zombie. Bad enough right? Wrong! When you kill that zombie, another chrysalid pops out fully grown to continue the cycle of teabagging your ego into a bloody smear.

Make one wrong move, and your soldiers will die. And they will die a lot. Don't get attached or you might watch as your Master Sniper named Sven, who survived through those first, harrowing missions to become a true, exo-skeleton and plasma-rifle equipped badass, get iced by a lowly sectoid in a darkened warehouse. That's the beauty of X-Com. It is so unrelenting and so punishingly evil in how it constantly pushes you to maximize your tactical options. Do you reload and try to find a way to save Sven or do you let him take one for the team so that you can, hopefully, mop up the remaining alien resistance with limited casualties?

One aspect that I did not touch upon that adds an entire dimension to the gameplay is that X-Com features almost fully destructible environments. If you know that a lone chrysalid is hiding inside of a warehouse, you can bomb the place to the ground with a few well-placed rockets and grenades rather than send a platoon of men inside to their death. You can even blast holes through walls with your laser rifles. This adds a tremendous amount of tactical options to an already tactically rich experience and one that you will miss when you play similar games. The fact that X-Com, a game made in 1994, had destructible terrain and most games nowadays do not is astounding.

So if you don't mind dealing with an obtuse UI and graphics only slightly clearer than mud, give X-Com a try. It's not the fastest paced game and it may seem a bit boring at first, but that first terror mission or that first base assault should convince you that there is something very special about this game. It's a classic for a reason.

This game comes highly recommended for wannabe anti-martian field commanders, people who love to name military squads after their favorite bands and then watching them die horrifically, and folks who love to read the words 'hidden movement' over and over and over again.

Note, a sequel/remake to X-Com: UFO Defense came out in 2012 named X-Com: Enemy Unknown. It is a good game and it very handily updates and expands upon the formulas of the previous games. I don't know if it's nearly as good, but if you're jonesing for a game with a similar style and depth, but with modern graphics and a UI that doesn't look like an accounting spreadsheet, then Enemy Unknown is an excellent game. Play it on classic difficulty and it will punish the fuck out of you.