Favourites
My favourite games as of the present.
To avoid this list from becoming endless, I'm limiting it to one game per franchise and a maximum of two games per genre.
List items
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Action Adventure -
As a huge Zelda fan narrowing the choice down to only one game to include on this list is extremely difficult. That said, A Link to the Past is the only real choice [sorry Ocarina and Majora!] The two huge overworlds grant an incredible sense of adventure, coupled with a beautiful score, brilliantly designed dungeons, gorgeous sprites and a ton of secrets makes this game my favourite of all time.
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Puzzle -
Valve's surprise hit quickly became a cult hit, and it deserves every bit of recognition it got. The clever portal puzzles combined with an extremely well written and delivered script culminated in one hell of a game. Very much looking forward to Portal 2.
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FPS -
Half Life 2 is simply one of the best designed shooters around; with it Valve reinvented the way a shooter could tell a story and make us care about characters despite little real interaction with them.
Oh, and the gravity gun is probably the best use of physics in a shooter. Ever.
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JRPG -
From the tactical Press-turn battle system to the "gotta catch 'em all!" mentality of the Personas and the fantastically catchy soundtrack, Atlus provides some of the most enjoyable JRPG experiences around with the PS2 iterations in the Persona series.
Some may debate that Persona 4 is an overall better game, and I don't really disagree with them, however Persona 3 simply resonated with me in a way that Persona 4's just didn't. While I will never forget Kanji-kun or Chie-chan the ending of Persona 3 will always choke me up just a little.
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WRPG -
What can change the nature of a man?
Playing Plancescape: Torment.
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2D Platformer -
A fairly obvious choice, it was either Mario 3 or Super Mario World, however slightly tighter controls and World 4 tips the scale in favour of Mario 3.
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Action RPG -
This game can be summed up in two words: Loot Lust.
While Diablo drafted the formula for ridiculously addicting gameplay and broken mice, they perfected it with Diablo II. I've easily spent more time levelling and collecting loot on Battle.net than I've spent on the rest of the games on this list combined, and you know what? I'd still totally jump back in for another 50 hours, farming Mephisto and killing cows for SoJs.
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2D Platformer -
Capcom perfected the 8-bit platform shooter, and while I could never beat this on anything but the 'Normal' mode added to the US release I respect those who braved the Japanese Normal ['Hard' in the US release]
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JRPG -
Beautiful is the word to describe this game.
Beautiful score.
Beautiful sprites
Beautifully told story.
Ironic that this game has the darkest tone of all the Final Fantasies then.
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WRPG -
Kudos to Bioware for releasing a truly old-school CRPG in this day and age. Every inch of this games painstakingly crafted world, from it's gigantic codex to the deep, frustratingly difficult combat is a love letter to the games produced by Black Isle; and every moment is enjoyable.
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Action/Shooter Hybrid -
Choice is the design theme of Deus Ex. Many games promise the ability to choose your own way out of a situation but Deus Ex remains one of the few where you truly could. These choices coupled with a great semi-dystopic future made for one hell of an amazing game.
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3D Platformer -
For me this is game defines Rare in it's prime. Goofy humour, tight gameplay with a load of options, bright, colourful worlds and characters. Mario 64 may have been the game to introduce the world to 3D platformers but Banjo-Kazooie evolved and perfected it.
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RTS -
Alongside it's predecessor Total Annihilation Supreme Commander is the only RTS to offer what I truly want from the genre: absolute control over huge armies that span entire continents or worlds in a single map. The scale this game offers is staggering, with unit counts into the thousands and resource system based on constant generation rather than accumulation Supreme Commander made me feel as if I really was in command of a legion of robots.
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