I'm taking you through a list of games that are on the tip of my tongue at the moment. There are many many great games that I missed, but these are the ones I can remember and talk about.
This is a WIP. I plan on having a lot more, but alas I've got other things to do in life. Maybe I'll even sort it later.
It took a while, but once I got hooked that was it. The MMO-ish aspects aside it's pretty neat and once you get higher you begin to see there's actually some distinction between all the guns.
The first FPS I played. It still has a community that's going strong after all these years as a testimony to its greatness. The addition of only one new gun seems sub-par, but the super shotgun is a sublime weapon that changed everything. The new monsters were also nice as well and added quite a bit in the way of gameplay.
I never played this through or played this enough, but you can't have a list of great games without this on there. It's just amazing.
For all its problems, it's a great Hack and Slash Action RPG that has good art direction, runs on everything, and is a nice way to spend a break. It also lets you quit anywhere which makes it nice for those five minute game breaks.
Driving can be a bore, the black market needs some mods and cheating to make it useful, but his sandbox is huge and it's quite fun to drive into a base with a monster truck and lay waste to everything. The grapple and tether system are also great fun. Tether two vehicles together and watch the fun.
Another Sandbox. The story is crap, the graphics are passable, but the customization is insane and its a lot of fun with tons of little minigames. It's what GTA should have been about in the first place: Fun.
A decent brown shooter with some neat enemies and a few weapons that were rather unique in their time. What truly made it shine though was the modding capability and the netplay. With the Quake World Client you got a great multiplayer game that launched the idea of FPS Multiplayer into the mainstream. Also, did I mention the modifications? Team Fortress, CTF, Counter Strike (Gooseman started out with Navy Seals for Quake) can all trace their roots here. While CTF was not invented by Threewave, it was brought into the mainstream by it.
The entire franchise is slow cooked to perfection. While I disagree with the fact that HL2 gives you very little ammo and rather bland weapons, every game in this series is extremely enjoyable.
Back in the day I was more of a fan of Duke Nukem 3D than Quake. Quake had a lot going for it, mods, netplay, a good engine, but Duke Nukem had charm. You're there in some of the most scary crap in the universe with face eating aliens and psychic brains and mutated humans armed with shotguns and Duke Nukem makes you feel safe and secure as he blows everything up and quips about it. Also, the interactivity and little touches all over were amazing.
I haven't really played much of this, but from what I have I can say I loved it. It was a game I missed and when I finally tried it it was the era of HL2 and despite all that advancement and its non-standard controls which take getting used to, it's a great atmospheric game. Even in a day where it isn't exactly a looker anymore.
From its humble origins of Narbacular Drop with Princess No-Knees the team behind this was destined to go places. You came for a game with some interesting puzzle mechanics using portals and you were floored by the unexpected humor, atmosphere and charm. Valve really believed in this product and by sandwiching it with titles people wanted, this game was able to piggyback upon the established franchises and launch an IP into stellar success.
By adding guns to Super Sprint you got Death Rally, a game about four racers driving around a track picking up powerups and blasting the hell out of each other with machine guns. It's simple, fun and it has yet to be matched. Combat racing in this style should really be done a lot more.
I could never play this game well as a child and even today it's tough. Thexder had some dodgy controls, but the concepts of using energy for ammo, health, and shields as well as the whole turning into a jet made this game a legend in my heart. It looked like a shoot'em up action game, but at its heart it was an intensely difficult strategy game. You had to be careful in rationing your health, shoot too much and you die, shield too often and you waste health on making shields. It's an unorthodox and memorable gem even if when you look back on it under a microscope, it isn't exactly the world's greatest game.
Mutant League Football was American Football made 100 times more awesome by the inclusion of robots, skeletons, aliens and trolls. Everyone smashes into each other while throwing footballs rigged with explosives to kill half the enemy defenders and then the next thing you do is bribe the ref who after a play or two gets murdered for giving out wacky infractions like 'booger flicking' or 'unnecessary kindness' against the enemy team. The dialog was funny as well. It's another game that deserves a sequel, but may never get one. Given all the charm it had, I sometimes wonder if it might be a good thing it doesn't since the reigns are so difficult to pull up. The names which spoofed stars of the day were one of the great touches. Bones Jackson, Reggie Fright, how are you going to replace them?
It was brilliant, take a motorcycle racing game and add the ability to knock the stuffing out of each other until one person falls off a bike and then kick the next racer or cop into an oncoming car. Dodging various things and beating people up was simply great, then the cutscenes after you won or lost added even more charm. Road Rash is another game series that deserves a modern sequel and it probably will be a bit easy to pull off compared to other games that deserve it. Some of the aspects of Road Rash aren't a period piece like Mutant League Football. It's just timeless and fun.
Part RPG, Part beat'em up. It was just a ton of fun to beat the hell out of people with weapons lying around and then buy a big mac after its all said and done. The game was simple, the controls were simple, but it was a ton of fun with some real flair as you went around beating up thugs for lunch money and then going off and buying magazines and sushi. Also, you got to skip cut-scenes by sucker punching someone as they are talking. Who has never wanted to do that ever?
0 Comments