Overly Chatty Penguins

The Ready Room => Off Topic => Topic started by: Niteowl on August 17, 2004, 11:45:30 AM

Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 17, 2004, 11:45:30 AM
this is my list of PC games that have impacted game making and/or have a etheral 'classic' feel to them. discuss, make yer own lists!

civilizations
sim city
doom
half life
starcraft
nethack
evercrack
solitaire
total annihilation
test drive
need for speed
falcon 3.0
kings quest
leisure suit larry
zork
sims
deus ex
thief
diablo
nwn
scorched earth
alone in the dark
quake
grand theft auto 3
elite
black and white
command and conquer
prince of persia
wolfenstein 3D
counter-strike
Oregon Trail
Dungeon Keeper
Grim Fandango
metal gear solid
roller coaster tycoon
archon
X Com
X Wing vs TIE Fighter
Doom 3
Morrowind
Descent
fallout
mechwarrior
natural selection
tetris
bf1942
mdk
system shock 2
hitman
max payne
unreal tournament
medal of honor



Classics, but not sure if they are essentials:
Monkey Island
Day of the Tentacle
Sam and Max
Loom
homeworld
marathon
Battle Chess
MASTER OF ORION II
Baldur's Gate
Screamer
Duke Nukem 3D
Serious Sam
Ages of Empires 2
Rise of Nations
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Necrosis on August 17, 2004, 12:27:21 PM
X Com man FTW!!

Criminal you missed this out. Squad based gameplay at its finest.

Shadowrun
Warriors of the Eternal Sun
Shining Force series

Arguably the finest RPGs to grace the Megadrive/Genesis

Blade Runner (so sweet)

I defy you to find a better RPG than this, in the truest sense of the term. No other game allows such a wide range of char interaction (as opposed to the FF games.. your responses there being surly or surly).

Dune 2/2000/Emperor

C&Cs jazzed up cousin

Alpha Centauri, ftw.

Yes, lets take the best bits of Civ and slap on a bloody decent enemy AI. And yes despite lagging by close to a decade, I still urinate on Civ 3, my mutant offspring.

MASTER OF ORION II

Observe as I likewise urinate on my mutant offspring, as well as give you fleet battles, galactic politics, micromanagement, macromanagement in a format that WORKS.

X: Beyond the Frontier/X-Tension

Yes, after the loooooong crawl to a decent ship I become Elite only better.


X Wing vs TIE Fighter (Alliance is for 2 yr olds)

Thrill as I allow PC users to fly Star Wars ships and kill each other. Show love to the ability to hack files and make Star Destroyers flyable.



Other than those, I have to agree with your list. Freecell.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: esuna on August 17, 2004, 12:51:58 PM
Well, i feel i should, since my opinion is more important than anyone else's. In no particular order:
All classics, and if you've not played them all, you suck. :)
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: That Annoying Kid on August 17, 2004, 12:53:30 PM
rise of the triad anyone?

SIM PLANET! [yes I played that]

let's not forget everyones favorite RTS / FPS fusion Natural-selection.

and I'm sure HL2 will be a big step towards realism [physics and the like] in games
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Satanic Monkey on August 17, 2004, 01:30:07 PM
Final Fantasy 5,6,7,9
Super mario 3
Super mario World
All super mario karts
Super mario 64
Starcraft Broodwar
Ragnarok
Prisontale
Pokemon (yea, i said it, so what)
Pokemon the card game
Tetrix
Half-life mods ( esf, ts,tfc, ns)
Most of the zeldas
Conker's bad fur day
Psi-ops
Dragonballz fighting games for snes and final bout for playstation.
Street fighter 2 and 3
Breath of fire 3 and 4
Chrono Trigger and Cross
All kirby games
Donkey kong Country 1,3
Bomberman
Harvest moon (all of 'em, expect the snes one)
Super mario rpg
Sonic
Warcraft
Super smash bros Melee
Pikmin 1,2
DDR
Secret of evermore and the other one, i forget the name
Pacman
Lesiure suit larry
And that's all I can remember
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Diablus on August 17, 2004, 01:31:50 PM
Sim Copter. Hands down. Crappy graphics, sexual sounds used for "bumping into structures/things" finding and jacking helecopters, HELLA lot of bugs. Cheat codes that let you get hipachi's for hours of Annihilating a city fun since theres NO cops!
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Jefe on August 17, 2004, 01:39:33 PM
Quote
Well, i feel i should, since my opinion is more important than anyone else's. In no particular order:
    [/li][li]Doom 3
    [/li]
  • Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, 4, 5
All classics, and if you've not played them all, you suck. :)
[snapback]26547[/snapback]

you might want to think about these one more time.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 17, 2004, 02:07:31 PM
what part of PC GAMES do you goobers not understand? make your own list for consoles! keep this aboot PC games!
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: holy_devil on August 17, 2004, 02:34:15 PM
can't believe no one mentioned shadow warrior. great game, one of the first to use jump crouch and secondary fire (if not the first) and climbing. also, blood. hilarious and great freaking game.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: esuna on August 17, 2004, 03:03:44 PM
Quote
can't believe no one mentioned shadow warrior. great game, one of the first to use jump crouch and secondary fire (if not the first) and climbing. also, blood. hilarious and great freaking game.
[snapback]26564[/snapback]

Shadow Warrior, as much as i really like that game, was released far too late. The Build engine was already dead by it's release, and it looked dated as hell. Blood was pretty good too, but got boring as it went on. :)

And jefe, as far as i'm concerned, Doom 3 is a classic in my eyes, i really love that game, and as for the Tony Hawk games, those things have kept me and my friends entertained for more hours than i'd care to count. I'd say that barring HL and FFVII, the tony hawk games have kept me entertained longer than anything else.

And finally, my opinion > yours. XD
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Evangelion_2 on August 17, 2004, 03:04:42 PM
Blood was a awesome fps. Especialy during a LAN party and you light someone on fire in deathmatch :D

I would add:
MDK
Serious Sam
AVP2
System Shock 2
BF 1942
No one lives forever
Myst
Enter the Matrix ( lol just kidding :p)
Splinter Cell
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: sonic on August 17, 2004, 03:23:00 PM
Front mission 3 for the psx, absolutely fantastic mech game
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: BobTheJanitor on August 17, 2004, 03:23:02 PM
Quote
System Shock 2

Can't believe it took that long for it to be mentioned. Heathens!
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 17, 2004, 03:35:38 PM
PC games ppl, PC!

Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Seth on August 17, 2004, 04:25:43 PM
Doom 3
Half life ( not going to mension mods )
Deer hunter 2004
Quake 3
Unreal turnament 2003
Lord of the rings, War of the ring
Max payne 1 n 2
Tribes 1 n 2
C%C red alert2
Soldier of fortune 2
BF1942
Delta force Blackhawkdown
Operation flashpoint
Tom clancy Ghost recon
Star wars jedi academy


thats just what i got kicking around in my desk
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Necrosis on August 17, 2004, 08:36:27 PM
Every game is a PC game now. GG Emulation. TECHNICALITY!


Anyone mention Ecstatica?



Side note, and rather funny.... despite using a Remember Citadel spray, I have never played SS1 or SS2. I need to mug ebay.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Malevolent on August 17, 2004, 09:11:01 PM
I don't necessarily like some of these titles, but they've had a large impact.

Unreal Tournament
Unreal
Diablo
Diablo II
Rainbow Six
Medal of Honor
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Tombomb on August 18, 2004, 09:57:12 AM
Master OF orion 2 is leet.... i remember playing that asowme game and i heard there was a masters of orion 3? so i waited and waited and got it..... Pa-TOOYE.... WORST GAME EVAR they OVER DID IT HARD CORE it was so advanced and complicated i dint understand ^^ nor did my brothers who are way smarter than me for like weeks... game sucked died horribly.  Master Of Orion 2 still owns
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Leaderz0rz on August 18, 2004, 11:11:28 AM
Ages of Empires 2...that took my life for like a year
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: CorvusX on August 18, 2004, 03:01:56 PM
Nobody played Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Clone Campaigns?

Basically the Star Wars version of AoE2 :ph34r:
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: That Annoying Kid on August 18, 2004, 03:38:47 PM
how about SAM? [secret agent man] old style 2d explorers FTW
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Uranium - 235 on August 18, 2004, 04:58:58 PM
Black and White has got to be the most unique game I've ever even thought could exist.

B&W can be annoying though, since a lot of times when you 'zoom in' to your critter to punish/praise him, the AI will change his 'action'. For example, you CAN teach him to poop in certain places, so you praise him as he poops in those places. However a lot of times, you zoom in to do the praise/punish thing and the AI switches over to 'Your creature needs to take a crap' and when you praise him, it changes it so 'Your creature will crap more often' instead of 'Your critter will crap on that object more' like it should. It's maddening sometime. It's almost impossible to properly teach him how to sleep in certain places since it almost always thinks you're punishing/praising him for 'getting tired too fast'.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: BobTheJanitor on August 18, 2004, 05:20:53 PM
B & W aggravated me because it felt like a game with a split personality. I was all happy with the 'you're a god, rain down death or blessings upon the puny mortals as you see fit' part of it, and then I found out that someone had decided to add in a Tamagotchi simulator as well. All powerful hand of god is fine, walking around a giant monkey who eats your subjects and craps on your temple is not so fine. I'd like to see how the game would have played out without the whole 'creature' bit, which pretty much took it over once it was introduced.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Necrosis on August 18, 2004, 05:57:53 PM
Yeah the creature teaching method is a bit odd. TBH I think the messages it sends to the interface aren't very specific. The program still records every detail.



BTW if you get the "will get tired more" messages after stroking for sleeping in its pen, instantly give the creature slappage. The message will change to "get tired less". This works for any activity, if you receive an unwanted response to your praise/scolding then act immediately to counter. My Ape can lob fireballs, cast lightning, throw rocks at the sea, etc.

(Casts lightning on rocks because I used the rock as a test subject. Lobs rocks at the sea because I used the sea as a test subject. The moral is - only train the creature with EXACTLY what you want to do. In this case, make it watch you lob rocks and fireballs at villages).
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: rad4Christ on August 18, 2004, 07:37:22 PM
Kudos for the Monkey Island series and grim Fandango, but why has no one said Maniac Mansion or Day of the Tentacle. Yes, MM was released on the NES, but DOTT had it built in :p. Sam and Max, any of the old lucasarts games like those, and Loom were the best. I had so many hours of fun with Monkey Island1 and Loom alone!!
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Black Mage on August 18, 2004, 07:45:24 PM
my list:
metal gear solid
metal gear solid
metal gear solid
metal gear solid
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: fatty on August 18, 2004, 09:57:29 PM
Quote
impacted game making
roller coaster tycoon should be added to these lists.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Malevolent on August 18, 2004, 10:07:52 PM
Update your list Nite!
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Uranium - 235 on August 18, 2004, 11:01:22 PM
Thief 3 also really surprised me. Made so long after T2 and T1, and not even by Looking Glass, I expected a whole lot of suck. But the story was great, the gameplay was great, the only real thing that annoyed me was that sometimes it could be a little too easy (which could've been fixed by making higher difficulties have restrictions on number of times you can kill someone vs. knocking out, etc.), and graphical anomalies which I just ignored.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Uranium - 235 on August 18, 2004, 11:22:05 PM
<Karan S'Jet> "No one is left... everything is gone... Kharak is burning..."


<Fleet Command> "Kharak is being consumed by a firestorm. The scaffold has been destroyed. All orbital facilities destroyed. Significant debris ring in low Kharak orbit."

<Fleet Command> "Recieving no communications from anywhere in the system...

... not even beacons..."


(http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/uploads//post-10-1087192719.jpg)
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Necrosis on August 19, 2004, 01:03:48 AM
"Best" bit in any PC game ever. Think of that when they say that games induce people to violence.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: fatty on August 19, 2004, 03:31:31 AM
Quote
this is my list of PC games that have impacted game making and/or have a etheral 'classic' feel to them. discuss, make yer own lists!

elite

what is that? never heard of it...  :help:
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: lolfighter on August 19, 2004, 04:32:49 AM
There's an old game that taught us that first-person-shooters CAN have more plot than "Demons have invaded Mars, go shoot them". That, and gameplay slightly more sophisticated than "kill monster, find key, exit map". Slightly.

I wish I could remember which one...
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Vinegar Ninja on August 19, 2004, 05:22:19 AM
I tried to tell him lolfighter
god knows I tried
I pointed out that it was one of the first, if not THE first FPSs to have freelook, and it was certainly the first to have grenade jumping :p
back then it was called frogblasting I believe ^_^
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Sancho on August 19, 2004, 05:23:38 AM
Wow, some good lists by owl, esuna, and satanic.  Just packed up my big 6 foot stack of game boxes so I'll have to break those out later and find some good ones.  Maybe even power up my 486 if I'd be arsed to do so.  Here's a few, they may not be "influencial" but they're classics nonetheless:

Oregon Trail
Battle Chess
SimCity 2000
SimFarm (seriously)
F19 Stealth Fighter (Dunno if its based on another game's engine, but it sure was the best flight sim game from the 80's I ever played)
Dungeon Siege (yes, I know its a Diablo rip-off, but it was done hella-good)
Dungeon Keeper I & II
Urban Assault (<------ !!!!!!!)

Well that wasn't very long, esuna stole all the good ones!

Off-Topic:  Holy hell satanic, Pikmin 2 was released?  I feel so out of the loop!  /me runs to the local rental store
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 19, 2004, 10:11:37 AM
Quote
Quote
this is my list of PC games that have impacted game making and/or have a etheral 'classic' feel to them. discuss, make yer own lists!

elite

what is that? never heard of it...  :help:
[snapback]26751[/snapback]


think freespace..  waaaaay back , in the 80's iirc.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 19, 2004, 10:12:47 AM
Quote
the only real thing that annoyed me was that sometimes it could be a little too easy
[snapback]26742[/snapback]

didja know about the bug where if you set the difficulty higher, it would spring back to normal difficulty. it took them  a while to get a fix out for it.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 19, 2004, 10:15:40 AM
Quote
Update your list Nite!
[snapback]26736[/snapback]


okok!!
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Doobie Dan on August 19, 2004, 10:32:19 AM
OMG TRIPLE POST

Anyone care to fill in us uninformed about the game that LF and Vinnie are talking about?
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: sonic on August 19, 2004, 10:33:05 AM
PUT DUKE NUKEM 3D ON THERE OR I SHALL BE FORCED TO DO SOMETHING TO THE MEECEES!!!
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Necrosis on August 19, 2004, 10:46:19 AM
Aw man, I read the update - Homeworld has to be an essential.

IIRC the first fully 3d strategy game, fantastic script considering its an RTS, beautiful backstory. Has to be essential.




Edit -

I think they're referring to Marathon.

http://www.bungie.net/Games/Marathon/ (http://www.bungie.net/Games/Marathon/)
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 19, 2004, 11:24:06 AM
yes it is marathon.

are you SURE it's the first fully 3D rts? i'll have to bump it up then. duke nukem 3d, while a classic.. i don't think gets to be essential.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: A Boojum Snark on August 19, 2004, 11:59:46 AM
Quote
Nobody played Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Clone Campaigns?

Basically the Star Wars version of AoE2 :ph34r:

I have SWGB, but never knew there was a CC expansion (or was it another whole game?)
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Necrosis on August 19, 2004, 12:50:22 PM
It was an expansion. Brought in the Confederacy and the Republic. Quite nice. I got both as a two-fer in the "Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Saga" box set.


Nice game.. not groundbreaking, but nice. Republic uses clonetroopers, gunships, all sorts of early Imperial stuff. Obviously very heavy on Jedi.

Confeds have Super Battle Droids out the wazoo, pretty poor in the air but have Geonosian Warriors who can fly. Droid focused but NOT mech focused.

Each has its own campaign, and a new unit is given to every civ - the Air Cruiser, which is like a flying Cannon. Also, power droids - think small mobile power centres. Thats probably the biggest changes, other than a few new units here or there and balance tweaks.



On the Homeworld note... yeah, I'm pretty sure its the first to utilise total 3d.

Although

"Militarism Part I was on shelf in 1998 with the name Freedom & Honor, in fact, it was the first 3D RTS (real-time strategic) in the world. And E-pie launched Militarism II this year based on a brand new 3D engine"

Now tbh I'm rating HW higher because it had true freedom of movement in 3d, and was a resource gathering RTS. Otherwise you could just count pseudo 3d games, like, say, Starcraft. But I digress.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 19, 2004, 12:53:57 PM
hrm, militarism eh? never hoid of it ! :) did it influence the gamers after?

on a side note, i'm listening to D&D gamers play.. on NPR.. i'm not sure how the bigger geek is here.. them, or me for listening to them..

sound familiar? (http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3858560)
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Necrosis on August 19, 2004, 03:55:40 PM
Never heard of it either myself. Just a quote I saw.





Man, D&D... we got blitzed one night and continued our campaign that we played when sober. Bad move. Details can't be given on a family forum. Needless to say the words "inverted spacetime warphole" and "groin" feature heavily. Poor poor Dwarf.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: BobTheJanitor on August 19, 2004, 04:07:33 PM
Oh man, drunken crazy D&D for the win. Doesn't everyone do that at some point? All I can remember about one game I played once with some friends was that it included the 'Evil Empress Jiggles'. And an evil army of cloned homosexual Hitlers. (it'll all in the way you accent the Sieg Heil)
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Uranium - 235 on August 19, 2004, 06:40:11 PM
Quote
this is my list of PC games that have impacted game making and/or have a etheral 'classic' feel to them. discuss, make yer own lists!

diablo

Quote
Classics, but not sure if they are essentials:

homeworld

 <_<  Die
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 19, 2004, 06:52:02 PM
diablo was an essential. for all it's haters, it spawned a whole breed of isometric hack and slash.

i moved homeworld up to essential, since it was the first true 3D rts.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Uranium - 235 on August 19, 2004, 10:50:41 PM
It did? Like what? The only barely-passable Nox? That's all I can think of.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: lolfighter on August 20, 2004, 06:33:07 AM
Doom is essential, Marathon isn't? That's it, no more love for Niteowl.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Niteowl on August 20, 2004, 10:20:12 AM
uranium: sacred, dungeon siege, Arcanum - Magick Obsura, to name a few good ones of the Action-RPG genre.

lf: okok, i'll move marathon up, you mac freak.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Grimm on August 20, 2004, 02:27:13 PM
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Ultima series yet; Although I havn't played any of the games, I've heard a lot about them and how big a thing they've been.

Anyway, here's my list and explanation of each.
○Halflife -Solid sci-fi first person shooter, amazing moddability.
○Starcraft -Still one of the best real time strategy games out there.
○Diablo 2 -Although I eventually got bored with it, I still poured hours and hours into this game, and had a really fun time with it. Plus there aren't that many free online RPGs (no pay-to-play).
○Warcraft 3 -Continues on with an already well-known storyline, still one of the nicest looking 3D real time strategy's, and the addition of Heroes added a new twist on gameplay. Also, very very cool unit and map creation.
○Unreal Tournament -My first introduction to first person shooters on the PC many, many years ago at a friend's house. Fast-paced, constant action and energy.
○Unreal Tournament 2004 -Great action I enjoy from the first one, with the introductoin of vehicles and many new game modes.
○Sim Tower -Not as complex as the Sim City titles, but still plenty to do and a lot of fun. Rather obscure title, not many people have heard of it.
○Halo -One of the few first person shooters that I enjoy the single player storyline more than online play, good ol' PC mouse and keyboard controls.
○Grand Theft Auto 3 -Brought the classic GTA games to 3D, great storyline, a lot of fun.
○Grand Theft Auto: Vice City -Improved a lot over GTA 3, introduced new gaming elements (shooting out tires, jumping out of cars) and vehicles (Motorcycles, helicopters).
○Battlefield 1942 -First game based around first person shooting and vehicular combat.

I'm sure there are more I've forgotten, but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head.
Title: Niteowl's List Of 100 Essential Games
Post by: Malevolent on August 20, 2004, 09:27:11 PM
Yeah, Uranium, despite the fact that you don't like Diablo (I played it a little and didn't get too into it), there are thousands and thousands of people who love to hack 'n' slash.