Your Top 10 Games

[Myrth]

Can someone finally explain me the appeal of Planescape, pretty please? And I mean it. I've played dozens of RPGs, from dungeon crawlers to storytelling-heavy stuff. And everyone is constantly claiming how great and epic Planescape is. I've tried to play it four times. Each time ending up forcing myself to continue. Each time failing to go further than about 2/3 of the plot. It's probably one of the most revolting games for me... and yet everyone keeps praising it. Why?! What for? Is there some secret layer of the game that I've failed to notice? The characters are as unpleasant as they could be, the quests are convoluted mess of "quirkiness" and the main plot is just meh - all of that packed into a setting that is just so "special" it goes absolutely over-the-top, but never realises how comical it gets in the process.
Then what's the appeal?

[vv221]

1. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
2. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
3. Sid Meier’s Alpha…
Uhh…

Well, let’s go in no particular order:

• Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
• Diablo II
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
• Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade
• Planescape: Torment
• Shadowrun Returns & Dragonfall
• Age of Empires
• Baldur’s Gate
• Heroes of Might and Magic IV
• Faster Than Light

[Myrth]

1. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
2. Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
3. Sid Meier’s Alpha…

Yang did nothing wrong!

Heroes of Might and Magic IV

Pirate campaign was the best thing ever done in Heroes series

[IHaveHugeNick]

Eh, I guess I'll bite:

Grim Fandango - this game showed me that games can do storytelling as good as any other medium

The Longest Journey - and this game confirmed it

Starcraft 1 - the first great RTS

Supreme Commander - the last great RTS

Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines - risky, ambitious, buggy. Flawed masterpiece. A product of its time, too. In todays political climate, a game like that might never be done again.

Civilization 4 - I probably have 300-400h in this.

Mass Effect 2 - the best RPG companions ever

FTL - be quiet, Satan. Don't tempt me. Don't tempt me. Don't te...oh bloody hell, another 5 hours gone.

Betrayal at Krondor - first game that actually made me feel like its world was alive.

Fallout 2 - why we're all here

System Shock 2 - I've tried to replay it few years ago and it still scares the living shit out of me. People from LGS were geniuses, the gameplay mechanics and systems in this thing are God-tier.

[Drool]

Out of all examples you had to pick probably the worst one, aka game made by Bethesda

Yawn.

Dunno, unless it's open-world RPG, there is literally no other way to play than "power through".

Speaking of being wrong on several levels...

How about it's simply not worth the time and hassle to play it ever again or alternatively there is no replay value at all.

Guess I'm just better at not picking crap games.

You are just a guy who wants to feel better than the rest, because they are having fun "the wrong way"

Says the man who opened his screed preening about how awful Bethesda was.

Fallout 2 - why we're all here

Meh. The only one of the main series I haven't replayed. I should give it another try some time. Maybe the GOG version isn't a buggy mess.

[SagaDC]

Let's try to keep the tone civil. Everyone's got different opinions when it comes to games, or entertainment in general. Feel free to talk about the games you like, but try not to be too critical about what games other people like.

Fallout 2 - why we're all here

Meh. The only one of the main series I haven't replayed. I should give it another try some time. Maybe the GOG version isn't a buggy mess.

You'll want Killapp's bugfix patch. It's pretty much THE comprehensive bugfix patch for Fallout 2. Interplay even put the patch right on the disk when they were marketing the "Fallout Trilogy" bundle a couple of years ago, apparently with the assumption that everyone would be using it anyway.

Killapp also did a restoration patch that restores a lot of the unfinished or entirely cut content, but some folks aren't looking to alter the core game to that degree.

[kilobug]

Can someone finally explain me the appeal of Planescape, pretty please?

Awesome and highly memorable characters and PC-NPC interaction, deliciously weird and original setting, very good writing, many non-combat ways to handle quests, beautiful art and music, ...

But I fear it's not something that can be "explained", Planescape: Torment is an artistic masterpiece, and as such, if you don't enjoy it, sadly there is not much way to "explain" how to enjoy it, like if you don't like some music or poetry, no explanation will make you like it :/

[kaiman]

• Ultima VII
  That one is clearly at the top of the list, the order of the rest is fairly inconclusive. In so many ways, what's been done in U7 is still unmatched today. I've been just playing it again a few weeks back, and the magic is still there. Only towards the end did it get a bit boring, as all that was left was completing a few dungeons.
• Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge
  THE arcade racing game. Maybe not as pretty as Outrun on a real arcade machine, but way cheaper in the long run (yes, I bought my copy) and with split screen multiplayer. Also played that a bit last year, while waiting for the Amiga Commpendium to arrive. Still great fun, though keyboard controls suck compared to a Competition Pro ;-)
• Memoria
  IMHO the best story in any point & click adventure. First time ever a computer game made me cry. While nearly all the Daedalic adventure games released to date deserve a spot on the list, that one beats them all.
• Ambermoon
  Probably the best role playing game on the Amiga. The one and only game where I actually wrote a letter to the publisher after completing it. Have not touched it in ages, though.
• Morrowind
  While I never completed the main quest (got bored after about the 2nd Ash Vampire), this also got so many things right that were trashed in later Elder Scrolls games, with such a huge and believable world full of weirdness and so many things to discover that I must have missed at least half of them.
• Civilization
  That's a series I played to death up to at least Civ3. I know the controls of the first one do not stand the test of time, so hard to say which entry should be in this list. Probably Civ CTP, for its Linux release :-).
• Formula One Grand Prix
  Again a series I played up to the 3rd installment. For me the first actual racing simulation worthy the name. While the first one actually got way too easy after a while, I'd say that Grand Prix 2 is the one I enjoyed most. Though I must say Indycar Racing 2 could also have made the list if it had been released earlier.
• The Dig
  The last great point & click Adventure from Lucas Arts, with great visuals and music and a story that could have been straight out of a Steven Spielberg movie ... oh wait! Played that 2 or 3 times already.
• Planescape Torment
  If it weren't for that, I wouldn't be here ;-). While I did not like the end (maybe if that CGI video would have been longer ...), I have not yet found such first class writing in any other computer game.
• <10th place>
  Too many contenders for 10th place, really. Incidently, a lot of them are also older titles, like Day of the Tentacle (funniest game), Warcraft 2 (fun to play and included a map editor!), Sid Meier's Pirates (heck, most of Sid's games should be on that list) but also some newer ones, like Divinity Original Sin (best turn based combat).

[Myrth]

Can someone finally explain me the appeal of Planescape, pretty please?

Awesome and highly memorable characters and PC-NPC interaction, deliciously weird and original setting, very good writing, many non-combat ways to handle quests, beautiful art and music, ...

But I fear it's not something that can be "explained", Planescape: Torment is an artistic masterpiece, and as such, if you don't enjoy it, sadly there is not much way to "explain" how to enjoy it, like if you don't like some music or poetry, no explanation will make you like it :/

So in short - you either like if from the start or never willl? Well... fine... I guess? But honestly, I seriously can't find any of those merits usually presented as part of this game. And I even managed to play King of the Dragon Pass long enough to finally realise how really good it was, even if also very weird, so it's not like I'm not trying.

Civilization 4 - I probably have 300-400h in this.

... bu that's like 20-25 playthroughts

Since the subjects of turn-based strategies and 4X games came into view...
1. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
2. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
3. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri...
... ok, we've got this joke already

1. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - THE quintessential 4X game; it's only "flaw" is low resolution for modern standards.
"The wind shall blow and I shall bend. The sky shall open and I shall drink my fill."
2. Heroes of Might & Magic 3: The Shadow of Death - the campaign and ability to generate random maps made this game almost impossible to get bored with; cranked up even higher thanks to WoG mod.
3. Civlization 2 - you can run it on literal, not metaphorical toaster and still enjoy
4. Master of Orion 2 - do I reall need to explain?
5. Age of Wonders 2 - when you need to get a little bit more tactical with your Heroes
6. Heroes of Might & Magic 4 - while often treated like red-haired 7th child of the poor cousin, this game came with the best campaigns in the entire series and for me is the end of the franchise, a worthy end.
7. Civilization 4 - the game itself is rather meh... but comes with incredible Caveman2Cosmos mod, which changes absolutely average game into a damn masterpiece.
8. Theocracy - a strange mix of RTS, TBS and 4X game, but even without that, the setting alone makes it a game to remember
9. Endless Space - mostly for trying to fill the gap after the Master of Orion
10. Disciples 2 - gameplay is meh, the story is laughably over-the-top grim-derp... but still delivers a very specific atmosphere

[IHaveHugeNick]

Civilization 4 - I probably have 300-400h in this.

... bu that's like 20-25 playthroughts

If any Civ playthrough takes you 16 hours, I am sorry.

[kilobug]

1. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - THE quintessential 4X game; it's only "flaw" is low resolution for modern standards.

Don't get me wrong, SMAC is a very great game, I played it a lot (I just included it in "civilization" in my list, it's part of the serie to me :p) but there are two flaws in it that makes it a bit boring (to me) after many playthrough :

1. The inbalance of psi attack; if you the Dream Twister wonder, your psi attacks are all at 4.5, and psi defense is only 2, so you basically never lose when you attack.

2. The "massive spwan" of worms/locus at end game, which isn't a real threat near end game, but requires to manually fight every turn (if you attack them, you destroy all the units of a cell in one attack, if you let them attack, they'll easily overpower base defense since they have like 10 units at once). That makes the end game a bit tedious.

[Myrth]

Wait, wait. Doesn't The Neural Amplifier and the specific unit add-on magnify it to 4? I rarely use PSI attacks myself, so don't know the specifics here.

And about spawns - they rarely occure to me, while my bases are producing 80 or even 100 minerals per turn each. It's just a matter of how much you want to eco-damage the planet and how much protect it. Since the game comes with really strong enviromental message, I see no point of doing vantom ecological destruction. It also comes from the bug that triggers in any "normal" gameplay. You see, because of scripting bug, you need to have first xenofungus bloom in any of your bases BEFORE building any eco-related building in ANY of your bases. Quite counter-intuitive, isn't it? This way, the script works properly, so all those buildings work in proper way and it's easy to reach high mineral production without creating eco-damage. Without it... well, a massive worm hunting. So it's less about game itself and more about truly annoying bug. Do things in "proper" way to not trigger the bug and it's a breeze, without constant combat

[Myrth]

Civilization 4 - I probably have 300-400h in this.

... bu that's like 20-25 playthroughts

If any Civ playthrough takes you 16 hours, I am sorry.

I usually play Caveman2Cosmos, where "average" is around 60-70 hours per game. For long game - ho boy.. My record on largest map with maximum number of civs was 122 hours and I've barely reached first "modern" technologies, while reaching the point where I've conquered the whole world. For the record, that's about 2/3 of the tech-tree, as the game ends with truly futuristic techs.

And even if we skip all of this, 400 hours is about 50 games. That's not even enough to check all civs with all leaders if I recall correct. Even if playing as anything else than Indians under Ghandi is a waste of time and potential in vanilla Civ 4 - that's just a game-breaker

[kilobug]

It also comes from the bug that triggers in any "normal" gameplay. You see, because of scripting bug, you need to have first xenofungus bloom in any of your bases BEFORE building any eco-related building in ANY of your bases. Quite counter-intuitive, isn't it? This way, the script works properly, so all those buildings work in proper way and it's easy to reach high mineral production without creating eco-damage.

Oh, I didn't know about that bug, might be the reason I constantly have massive swarms, even if I tend to play very "greenish". Thanks !

[Myrth]

If this bug triggers, the only eco-related facilities that work properly are Tree Farm and Hybrid Forest and only the bit about removing penalty for terraforming. Planet rating will be also broken and not working at all.
If the bug won't trigger , EACH eco-building (Tree Farm, Hybrid Forest, Centauri Preserve and Temple of Planet) will increase your potential of "clear" minerals by 1, just as the game was intended. Meaning it's 4 "clear" minerals gained per base, so by having 10 bases you are 40 minerals ahead, without any ill effects. Just by gaining points from Tree Farm and Hybrid forest alone is great, since those are buildings almost all of your bases will have anyway (since there is no point of using any other terraforming than forest on tiles below 2000 m). And the Preserve and Temple come with additional +1 to different formula which is cumulative, further decreasing eco-damage when the threshold is crossed and damage starts to occure.

Here, read this: http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Ecology_(Revised) . It's a summary of quite lenghty rant once posted on already defunct forum, explaining all the elements of the formula and mechanics in crystal clear form. I've managed to have base with 2 mineral bonuses, 6 boreholes and everything else covered with forest, while supported by 10 Nessus mining stations and all the facilities increasing mineral output, and no eco-damage

Of course this mechanics can be exploited to create virtually limitless number of "clear" minerals, but why would you need to exploit something that when used fair and square already doubles your production potential without any cheating, exploiting and just playing the game "as intended". Unless of course you want to use planet bursters without ending up in endless bloom, but the bloom exists exactly to prevent players from turning half of the planet into craters.

===

Meanwhile, I've found another flaw. You can always start the game in the middle of Monsoon Jungle and undercover nutrient bonus in your first/second turn, breaking the game to completely unfun level of absurdly fast growing and outpacing everything and everyone, other human players included. But at least it's heavily randomised

[sear]

There is no way I can pick a "top 10" that I can actually put in any sort of definitive order. But what I can do is list off some games that I love and had a profound influence on me.

- Deus Ex
- Fallout & Fallout 2
- Half-Life
- Planescape: Torment
- Unreal & Unreal Tournament
- System Shock & System Shock 2
- Civilization series
- Legend of Zelda series
- Metroid series
- Just about everything by BioWare and Obsidian on some level

[IHaveHugeNick]

I usually play Caveman2Cosmos, where "average" is around 60-70 hours per game. For long game - ho boy.. My record on largest map with maximum number of civs was 122 hours and I've barely reached first "modern" technologies, while reaching the point where I've conquered the whole world. For the record, that's about 2/3 of the tech-tree, as the game ends with truly futuristic techs.

Oh wow, I didn't know that people who play largest map with max civs actually exist. I exclusively play standard size map with 7 Civs, average playthrough takes maybe 5-6 hours. Anything bigger doesn't add any complexity, it just makes the playthrough needlessly long.

That's not even enough to check all civs with all leaders if I recall correct.

As if I would need a full playthrough to check what every civ can do.

Even if playing as anything else than Indians under Ghandi is a waste of time and potential in vanilla Civ 4 - that's just a game-breaker

Well that depends what kind of playthrough you are going for. There's plenty of combat oriented Civs where you build towards a specific unique unit and dominate from there. For a builder playthrough you obviously want the Dutch. For the spaceship victory you probably want the Malinese. There's plenty of variety in Civ 4, and civs all have their little intricacies and cheese tactics.

[Drool]

I exclusively play standard size map with 7 Civs, average playthrough takes maybe 5-6 hours. Anything bigger doesn't add any complexity, it just makes the playthrough needlessly long.

I always kind of like smallest world with max civilizations. It's kind of like Thunderdome.

[macksting]

1. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - THE quintessential 4X game; it's only "flaw" is low resolution for modern standards.

I'd think it differs in very important ways from my favorite 4X games, Stars! and Sword of the Stars. They do have the four Xs in common, of course, but do you feel they scratch the same itches?

[Myrth]

Oh wow, I didn't know that people who play largest map with max civs actually exist. I exclusively play standard size map with 7 Civs, average playthrough takes maybe 5-6 hours. Anything bigger doesn't add any complexity, it just makes the playthrough needlessly long.

When the amount of strategic resources is close to 100, you NEED largest possible map, or you might find yourself on planet that doesn't come with Fine Clay. Or Iron Ore. Or - worst of them all - Oil.
BTW - in case of C2C, if I recall well, the max is 32 civs and the top map is 8 times bigger than the vanilla maximal map. Ofc the maximum stable amount of civs is around 16. Anyway, with so many civs on truly large map, it's MUCH more challenging to not only build your own empire, but then maintain it and not being swallowed. C2C got pretty sneaky AI that treats anything smaller than entire continent painted in own colour as underachieving. Really, go try this mod, it's worth every minute of gameplay.

Even if playing as anything else than Indians under Ghandi is a waste of time and potential in vanilla Civ 4 - that's just a game-breaker

Well that depends what kind of playthrough you are going for. There's plenty of combat oriented Civs where you build towards a specific unique unit and dominate from there. For a builder playthrough you obviously want the Dutch. For the spaceship victory you probably want the Malinese. There's plenty of variety in Civ 4, and civs all have their little intricacies and cheese tactics.

Vanilla Indians come with the most powerful unit - their special worker. It makes a huge impact and remains active for the entire game, as it never goes obsolete. Combine with Ghandi and you are swimming in Great People and never suffer anarchy. This allows to sky-rocket the moment you unlock proper civics