I feel like my “all-time favorite” changes depending on my mood, but if I had to pick just one, I’d probably go with The Witcher 3. That game just hit all the right notes—amazing story, incredible world-building, and so much stuff to do without feeling like pointless filler. Plus, the expansions were just as good, if not better than the base game.
What about you? Are you more into RPGs, shooters, or something else entirely?
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I have to say for me, I know this won’t be everybody, my favorites are going to be the ones that change the way I felt about gaming, not necessarily ones that I would want to play again.
In fact, I have found that going back to some of the seminal games, or the ones that were most impactful to me, hurt my feelings because they were from a time… Where let’s be real, technical limitations made a lot of very basic quality of life things nearly unavailable.
I think the 1st that changed the way I felt about gaming was Ultima 4 - they had flushed out the systems of the earlier three, which were pretty primitive, and made morality, all kinds of wonderful internal game systems, relationships, secrets, optional paths, total exploration. 5 and 6 were games that I explored and played molecularly because they were just a joy for me as well.
Another one I talk about a lot is a game called Squares Deluxe which the developer thankfully changed as freeware a few years ago. So anybody with DOSBox can download it and play it legally, and in my view, it’s the best shape packing game ever made - there are so many amazing mechanics, and if you play Extreme mode and get a great run going, it can be the most thrilling experience!
How can I forget the very first game I played in arcades which was Atari Warlords at Fiesta Foods! I was bedazzled by the cabinet and I had to have a teenager explain to me what it was! I went flying home and explained what I saw to my mother and she was incredulous, and she took me back to play!
Runestone Keeper. I know that really if you distill it down, you’re kind of playing a probability-based card / slot machine game. But play your choice is broad, and I love the fact that the entire playfield changes with every move potentially. Yes you can get screwed over, yes you can have amazing runs, but it’s that unpredictability that keeps me salivating. I can’t actually recommend anybody play this outside of steam version because the app one keeps changing - I’ve bought it a few times and I keep losing my license/progress when they change publisher agreements, to hell with that noise!
Fez! I love the low stress puzzle game. I think it’s beautiful and smart. I love that it was made by one guy. It’s too bad he got burnt out and quit. He is very talented.
I probably can’t decide on a single one but if I had to list:
- Operation Flashpoint (a big candidate on best)
- Mafia 1
- Giant: Citizen Kabuto
- Half-Life series
- Portal series
- Dark Souls/Elden Ring
- Age of Empires II (also big candidate on best)
- Mass Effect series
And I’m gonna stop myself here because there’s way more which just complicates choice
This is really hard. Dungeon Master on the Amiga500 is up there, as is Unlimited Adventures. Today, these don’t look so interesting, but man they were great at the time. Amiga also had a neat RPG maker as well whose name I can’t recall.
Sekiro.
Better Than Wolves and Portal come to mind first.
BTW is just a labour of love of IMO a genius game designer FlowerChild (RIP) who out of spite for adding wolves to MC made the best game possible, it’s extremely rewarding, all the small details are thought through. And now the community has taken over the torch and are updating it faithfully further.
Portal is just a gem of the game, already mentioned in the thread so not gonna start another one.
Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic. It’s one of the most complex city builders made, and while the interface isn’t great and there are lots of obscure, weird, and downright unintuitive mechanics, it’s so rewarding to play because you can actually construct your infrastructure with materials and time, and so unlike Cities: Skylines or Transport Fever, the game doesn’t become trivially easy when you get a late game map. Those games you can eventually afford massive bridges and tunnels, but that’s not the case in Workers and Resources, because no matter how much money you have, bridges take time to build, and you’ll have to reroute traffic during construction, so you’ll only use them when you really need them.
Also I love the scaling, things like gas stations only require a single truck very occasionally, shall industries require a few trucks, and only the big industries like steel require trains (and only a reasonable amount too). As opposed to Cities: Skylines or Transport Fever where every industry ends up with a massive number or trucks or a silly number of trains.
I genuinely thought it’s an awful game the first time I tried. Tried it again few months later and fell in love with it.
My only problem with it is how slow everything happens if you play on realism, so I use cheat engine to speed up the game by a factor of 2-10 with hotkeys, otherwhise it sometimes feels like an idle game
My favorite game is actually 3. The mass effect trilogy. I designed my first tattoo around the n7 renegade and paragon symbols. Second is definitely Mario bros 3. Still play it every once in a while.
Based on play and replay, it seems to be either Payday 2 or Borderlands 2.
Payday2, especially if you have tons of builds and DLC, is a fantastic brain-off mob shooter where you can slightly improve/perfect your build and gameplay with each run. For some reason it just works for me.
Borderlands 2: fun guns; solid story; visuals and mechanics that mostly hold up today. It’s just a good time and another skill-tree builder game where you get to feel like a god if you’ve assembled your skill tree right. The NG+ modes are a bit of a slog, but playthrough 1 is just a solid time.
La-Mulana would have to be one of my top picks. With the catchy music, the “fuck you” difficulty, and the classic adventure theme really makes it stand out in my mind.
It’s easily The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
It has everything I could ask for in a game: Sword fighting. Magic. Secrets. Dungeon crawling. An alternate dimension. Side quests. Different tools and items. There’s enough content that it feels fulfilling to complete it. Peak art. Peak music. NPCs don’t talk too much, and there are just enough of them to make the world feel alive. Bosses.
Have you tried A Link Between Worlds yet?
RISK OF RAIN 2
StarCraft 2 was the perfect competitive RTS, with the best pro scene. I lived and breathed that game for years. Sucks that Blizzard decided to stop supporting it.
Shadow of the Colossus was barely even a game, it was art. I don’t think I even played it for more than 20 hours total but just a simple masterpiece.
Ender Lilies
It’s a mechanically strong Metroidvania with branching paths, hidden areas, and exploration, but what I love about it is the atmosphere and the juxtapositions is uses.
It is a crumbling decaying kingdom full of monstrosities, and the main character is an innocent little girl in a pure white dress. Lily does not attack, some of the monsters she is able to purify to restore their mind at which point they help her. So when you attack a monster appears to do the attack animation, while lily cowers a bit behind it.
One thing I love is when you are in a boss fight and shit is going down hard, the sound track is extremely chill piano music. The soft and beautiful contrasts against the harshness of the situation is a very compelling way.
The sequel Ender Magnolias is good as well. Mechanically there are some improvements, but I don’t feel like the atmosphere or world building is as good. That may be because I played Lilies and was used to it. If your haven’t played either I’d suggest starting with Lilies, and if you like Magnolias is worth your time.
