Best Games of all time...

I'm replaying 1 and 2 as part of the BFG Edition of Doom3. The games run inside Doom3 rather than a Dosbox host, the texture quality is drastically improved, it's truly a delight... ...mostly. You see, the game has no regional variants, so the same version I get goes on sale in Germany, meaning the Doom2 Wolfenstein secrets are stripped back. The music repeats other base-game tunes. The basic wall textures survive, but all portraits and emblems are gone.

Most glaringly, the blue SS guards are changed to the basic zombieman. The other changes are cosmetic, but this chops down the difficulty dramatically; those guards were harder to kill and had a more dangerous attack. It's a pity they didn't preserve the mechanics of them and just use a different monster's sound and sprite sets.

On the other hand, you still get to shoot Commander Keen, so it's not all bad...

 

Mostly what OmniaNigrum said, except I never even saw the non-enchanced version, so I guess I never saw it unpolished. It goes a bit deeper that that though.

Thechnicaly, with the financial collapse of projects such as Planescape Torment and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines which sort of integrated several genres (Planescape is technicaly a point and click / textual adventure with an awesome art design, and Bloodlines is mostly the same combined with a first person sneaker / shooter) the whole "let's make mature games" thing kind of went nowhere from my perspective. Morrowind was a massive hack and slash, but it was also one of the most visually and flavourfully stunning and non-derivative things in the genre of fantasy, while Oblivion was like larping in Germany (No offense to Germany, but it compares badly to Morrowind in the blow your mind sense, like most things which aren't in fact fantasy ).

When you get down to it, Fantasy fans are like most people about what they like, and quite a bit more rigorous about "keeping it pure" (all the more pronounced here where I'm from). They tend to go for derivative over innovative, and most of the ones I know IRL are deeply conservative people who've found and outlet which makes them feel hip enough, lose the RL baggage associatd with conservative worldviews, but is falls safely within the bounds set by themselves. I don't really mind that, and it reflects my expirience with fantasy fans of my generation and a bit older ones. In the society they grew up, theyre avant-guarde and imaginative. Compared to what fantasy as a genre allows for outside of the broader Tolkinean approach - not so much.

(I don't mean anyone any harm, this ties in with why I liked the witcher)

And on the other hand, the very strict definition of what can and what can't be fantasy left out millions and billions of things. Steampunk was unheard of not too long ago, Ebberon seemed like a complete renaissance (to be honest, the whole "fantasy and machinery can coexist" is more of an Arabic fantasy theme than European traditionaly, seeing how Tolkinean high fantasy evolved as a distinctly anti-modernist thing). The Goblins webcomic was also a wonder to behold - having reasonable goblins in a pre WoW D&D campaign, which I was fond of doing, was regarded as very controversial by the broader nerd commuinty in my region. Hell, I had people walk out on sessions if there was even a hint of "orcs are not necessarily chaotic evil", end even Warcraft III handled that in a hamfisted "now theyre the good guys painted green" sort of way. Baldur's Gate was a huge hit, while very few people wanted anything to do with Planescape Torment. And when D&D 4th edition came out, a friend that shares the outlook said about the Monster Manual - "Is there anything in there you can like, talk to or something?"

Also, Pratchett was only becoming huge, and it took a while for the generation which took him for more than a parody to really become a vocal force. Most of the older guys who wrote very non Tolkinean stuff (Moorcock, Lovecraft) took a long time to get included and if they did it was through "completely missing the point" stuff like Drizzt. Glen Cook was only really big in Poland, and you can tell from the Witcher. It's like someone did Moorcocks Elric, the Black Company overall bleak fantasy sthick and set it the world of Garret P.I.

So, there you have it, the Witcher, not the best game bugs-wise, interface-wise, mechanics-wise, came up as a very late sucessor to games wich leaned on the "doesn't fit in what the majority likes to think represents fantasy" tradition. It's got it's flaws, but compared to what's been coming out between the "Alpha Centauri - Fallout - Planescape - Vampre: Bloodlines" time and when it came out, in terms of narrative, themes and such, it stood miles apart.

EDIT: And a big awesome moment for DoD in this "no room for modernity in fantasy" regard. I don't know if the makers were aware of it but the "Hammer and Sickle wielding communitst paladins" were something every communist country fantasy nerd clicque joked and/or dreamed about - even if they werent into communism. It was made of awesome 15 years ago it was "Yeah, like that will ever happen..." Today, I'm playing a fantasy game where I can play as a Hammer 'n' Sickle wielding communist. In a joke setting, sure, but it's a good joke that was begging to be imortalized

 

Also, the reason I didn't much think about doom 2 is that I didn't lan doom too much, and the first one does a pretty decent job of making the different single player episodes feel "narrativey". You got the map, they got the distinct styles and all that, while Doom 2 feels like a map pack. I'm not hating on it, though, I didn't actually like where shooters went from there, doom was an adrenaline filled madness for me and I loved it. That's why I loved AvP so much, nothing since Doom made me really develop temporary PTSD

 

We always imagined them as lawfull good bordering on stupid guys with dual wielding (obviously), protection from holy/unholy magic and "Fascinate/Inspire: Workforce" spell which would allow you, provided you have a workforce of somesort available, to construct an ugly, yet robust building or contraption of some sort without any of the required materials/engineering skills. ;D

(EDIT: I also think they're kind of the natural thing that comes to mind when you try to think up an atheist/agnostic paladin, much like the buddhist monk is sort of the go to philosophicaly minded monk, rather than a theistic one.)

Come to think of it, with the "mainstream" domain of fantasy expanding into early modernity / industrial revoultion (once SF domain, funnily enough), the primary objects of wonder are moving from chivalry (simplified antagonizing of demoinzed creeps on a racial basis) and items of medieval metallurgy or lore into domains of invention (the Tesla kind, anonymous, "for science!" and looks very romantic in the Bill Gates dominated world of ours) and basic engineering, electrical engineering and actuall manual labor. (Since the west moved all production where kid's can't see it, engineering 101 stuff my grandpa went to colledge for is mystical to steampunk kids. I can fix home appliances, have tinkered up a working washing machine and must've picked a dozen old locks for absent minded drunken colledge students who've lost their keyes - these days this apparently makes me some sort of wizard. Oh, and I made crossbows before I knew what fantasy was, by tinkering with the standard "bottlecap shooter" design. Grampa used to build better ones out of old umbrellas. Rogue/Wizard hybrid?)

What I was going at, is that work, labor, industry and such has moved into fantasy, and err, the fact that a communist can crop up even in a non joke setting isn't that odd. Last time the west still manufactured their own stuff, every european county was full of them. Come to think of it - so was the US, only they called it labor unions or something. Same thing with lovecraftian themes - the internet IS Yog-Sottoth almost word for word, and where Tolkien was idealisticaly and militantly against progress, Lovecraft (Much like Kafka) was just plain horrified by what he was looking at, and was actually rather modernist about it. And what he was looking at got on with it and led us here.

So, interesting times for fantasy, I'd say, Pratchet is allready better at hinting at how the world works and had worked than most stuff you can learn in schools, and most media deffinitely. And I deffintely reccomend the Garret P.I. books as pulp ficition for urban fantasy / noir lovers, it's not the best in the world... except it's some of the very best in the genre if you don't count the portrayal of women. Eh, I guess the witcher fails on that count with the ridicuous pinups...

(getting off soapbox. god I could talk ears off a statue, will cut it out a bit)

 

I won't talk about the classics because I think enough has been said here and elsewhere about them. One of the more recent games I thoroughly enjoyed was Crusader Kings II. I got it and its first expansion on sale on a whim and was immediately turned off. The tutorials told me just enough to understand how to do things, but not when and why I should do them. I was staring at a game that baffled me, yet it had something that made me think, "If I knew what I was doing, this might be nice."

I found a set of tutorial let's play videos- probably the first LP's I actually watched- and slogged through. The result was finding a game that was both challenging and quite rewarding. The grand-scale RTS with the monarch building/intrigue/marriage-simulator succeeded in making me feel invested in my little duchy/kingdom. It was fun to see my ruler make massive gains in territory only to have it fall when rule was handed over to a universally-reviled heir. I stopped playing it to get through other games in my backlog, but I have a feeling I'll pick up the Byzantine expansion when it goes on sale. I have no comment on the non-historical aztec expansion

Also played and enjoyed torchlight 2, but I got my fill of grinding for now. Maybe some mods will bring my interest back.

 

Visually: Trine 2
Soundtrack: Drakensang: The River of Time
Sound design: I unno. I forget. I had one for this, too.
Script: Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga
"Gameplay": Pffffft. Pfffffffft. Pft. Pffffft.

 

Slightly off topic, but book 14 in the series, "Cold Days" is coming out later this month.

The Russian guy's name is Sanya.

Spoiler

He's the only Knight of the Cross who's still active in the series, so almost certainly he will make a repeat appearance at some point.

 

It's a girls name in Croatian or Serbian, allthough I can immagine it being a guy's name in Russian. It means either a "dream", a "dream-vision" (more accurately) in south slavic languages, but could possibly mean "dreamer" in russian (that would be "sanyar" in the other ones).

 

Brutal Doom, I think, makes you miss if you don't actually aim at the monsters. I think there's also stuff like headshots doing more damage. It's a crazy mod even besides all that. You might try it if you haven't yet.

For my best games, it'd have to be System Shock 2, Team Fortress 2, The Binding of Isaac, StarTopia, aaand uhhh Kingdom Hearts. I loved Kingdom Hearts.

But seriously StarTopia guys. Anyone who hasn't played this needs to. Just google it and find some pics. It's a real time strategy space station game where you build up commercial districts, industrial districts and a bio-deck while trying to keep your workers and visitors happy. It's soooo fun guys.

 

Uh, I'd hate to mess with the "done with textwalling about classics, moved on to noteworty games of this age" direction of the thread but I figuread out why I couldn't stop jabbering about AvP. If doom was a roguelike underneath everything, AvP was like the Kaizo Mario of shooters. Just wanted the thought to be somewhere on the intrawebs ^^

 

Doom as a roguelike... heh, it's been done (DoomRL).

 

I apologize in advance for bumping an old thread but I thought I can list my favourite games as well. Yep, the list is in particular order starting with my most favourite:
1. Serious Sam: The First Encounter (the first computer game I ever played. I was eight or seven and nobody cared that the game is 18+ and has tons of gore) and Serious Sam II. The Second Encounter wasn't really as good as First and I didn't like the theme. The third game named Serious Sam: BFE was so bad I didn't even finish it... and they're making another one. I have never been so butthurt in my whole life. I also have to mention the mod I had on a CD called Bastion of Darkness. I was little and it was the creepiest game in my life... I had to ask my dad to help me with one level full of deadly things a lot. It is also much harder than the game itself.
2. Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. Another childhood game I enjoy playing again and again.
3. Dungeons of Dredmor. Well, duh!
4. Dragon Age 2. I hated the first game, lol. My friend has really nice convincing skills. She made me play the second one and I loved it.
5. The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. What's up with the names divided with a ":"?.. I liked only two in the whole series - Skyrim and Daggerfall. I also hate Oblivion for making elves look stupid. And Morrowind is too boring. And Arena didn't work on my computer no matter what I did...

I'll narrow my list down to 5 because I don't think I like Assassin's Creed that much. I also love Cry of Fear but it's a Half-Life mod even though it is a whole different game. And I also love Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, but I don't like the gameplay. I love music, pixels and Vaati, haha. I think there's more games that I hate then games that I like... I mean sometimes I really like a game but it has some really annoying thing which makes me end up hating it. Mass Effect series for example. It has really nice characters, graphics, soundtrack... but it's so boring! I keep trying to finish it for the third time. Or Assassin's Creed II. It wouldn't be that bad if there was Altair instead of that Ezio, that ignorant, annoying prick! He is such a showoff, oh my god. He ruined that perfectly nice game for me. But I liked him when he got older in Brotherhood (it was so nice after Assassin's Creed II that I even cried in the very beginning) and Revelations. The third Assassin's Creed game... was possibly the worst Ubisoft game I ever played.