Your top 5 games of all time
 

Use your own criteria -- most influential, most groundbreaking, most time played, most enjoyed, whatever. Platform doesn't matter.

My list is my 5 most enjoyed games.

1. Dark Forces -- The first time I played a FPS and really felt like I was playing a character, not just controlling a camera with a gun attached. Incredibly immersive world for the time.

2. Tie Fighter -- I was never great at flight sims, but I loved Tie Fighter. So many great missions. I can remember being so nervous waiting for the incoming Rebel fighters.

3. Command and Conquer -- I played the Warcraft series as well and loved it, but when a friend and I pulled copies of C&C: Gold Edition out of the discount bin, I was a C&C convert. We played for hours over a direct connection across town. Such a terrible feeling when you would see the nuke inbound.

4. Unreal Tournament -- In college this was one of a handful of "go-to" games for the computer nerds on the hall. We played a lot of UT: Strikeforce, which was basically a Counter Strike rip-off. We had our own clan: [CAG]. And yes, it stood for Clans Are Gay.

5. Counter Strike -- And of course we played a ton of Counter Strike as well. We'd give it up when the aimbots got too prevalent, come back when they were all banned, and the leave again when they returned.

Honorable Mention: Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed -- One of the most fun racing games on the PC. Excellent graphics, great gameplay balanced between arcade and sim, and surprisingly not at all boring given that it was limited to one marque. It had a very well developed "career mode" similar to GT and Forza in which you had to win various races and tests to advance. Great upgrade system as well.

Also Considered: Total Annihilation, Quake III, Test Drive, Road Rash II, Pardus

Counter Strike

Bioshock (both)

Killing floor

Portal (both)

Half Life Series

List is more of recent favorites I'll have to redo this soon.

1. Quest For Glory Series (Hero's Quest, Quest for Glory 2, Quest for Glory 3)

2. Mega Man 2

3. Counter Strike

4. Police Quest Series (Police Quest 1, Police Quest 2, Police Quest 3, Police Quest 4)

5. Starcraft 2

Not necessarily in this order:

1. Half Life + Mods (CS, Day of Defeat, etc...)
2. Black & White 1 and 2
3. Morrowind
4. the entire Hitman series, specifically Hitman 2
5. Earthbound, for SNES

Oh man I forgot about black and white. I only played the first. I gave up after my monster got broken.

My ---- and balls
end of list.

(In no particular order)
5.Metal Gear Solid (the entire series)
4.Shining Force (1+2)
3.Star Wars Jedi Knight (Jedi Outcast / Jedi Academy)
2.Half Life series
1.Ultima Online

Pretty much the first two PC games I ever played. Many good memories.

This is difficult. Top 10 would be much easier for me, I feel like there are several that are on par with these 5. These selections could be swapped around on any given day.

Top 5 (No particular order):
1) Persona 3
2) Final Fantasy 7
3) Final Fantasy X
4) Half Life 2 + episodes
5) Portal 2

Others that could easily be in top 5 (No particular order):
Portal, Counter strike, Starcraft 1/2, Half Life 1, Fallout 3/New Vegas, Elder scrolls Oblivion/Skyrim, Left 4 dead 1/2, Killing floor, Ar Tonelico 3, Bioshock 1/2, Gran Turismo 4/5, Forza 4, Shadow of the Collosus, Silent Hill 1/2, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft 3

1) Elite
2) Wing Commander
3) Rick Dangerous
4) Lemmings
5) Rise of the Dragon

Oregon Trail - TRS-80

Dragon Warrior - NES

Knights of the Old Republic - Xbox

Mass Effect 2 - Xbox 360

LA Noir - Xbox 360


(Honorable Mention: Leisure Suit Larry series for PC 386SX)

1) Crono Trigger
2) Neverwinter Nights
3) Morrowind
4) Warcraft III and TFT expansion
5) FF VI

This is a toughie...

I can't really put them in order of importance, either. But in chronological order, I'd have to say:

1) Space War (1962). You can't get much more influential and ground-breaking than that. I've never had the opportunity to play it on an actual PDP, but this is where it all began, folks.

2) Star Wars (1983 sit-down arcade cabinet). Yeah, the wireframe graphics weren't much to look at, but this game may have been the first mass-produced instance of a smoothly animated first-person-perspective flight simulator ever. It was really something.

3) The various Sierra "Quest" games (early 80s - late 80s). The Space Quest series was probably my favorite, but King's Quest is really what took us out of the realm of Zork and Mystery House and created a whole genre of rich, colorful, animated 3rd-person adventure games.

4) Dactyl Nightmare (early 90s). Virtuality's first and best title. Ok, so the polygon-based graphics were both horribly primitive and 10 years too early, but we're talking about REAL virtual reality, here! Stereoscopic HMD, full-body motion tracking, the whole nine yards. The first time I played one of these, I was convinced that VR was the clear future of gaming. Who'd have thought that it would just wither away into nothing within the decade, forgotten an un-mourned?

5) Doom ('93). First-person shooters make up the vast bulk of today's videogame landscape, and they trace their roots back to this unassuming shareware title that rocked our worlds and made us all realize just how incomplete our lives were without a '486 processor and a SoundBlaster. Doom was not the very first FPS game, but it was significant in many ways. It offered full two-axis viewpoint control (eg: look up, shoot up), supported multi-level, rather than flat playfields, significantly raised the bar in terms of graphics and sound quality, and perhaps most importantly, introduced us to the concept of networked multiplayer FPS gameplay.

oh man... people keep reminding me of amazing games...

oregon trail i played for hours and hours...
lemmings.
1983 star wars sit down cabinet



and i also left out all my favorite flash games that have been the bulk of my "gaming" for the last couple years. lol

Empire Deluxe. Came out on 5 1/2" floppies in 1993, and there are still tournys held today. Simple, but endless fun as long as you have a human opponent. Highly customizable as far as victory conditions, which was a first.

Civilization (most notably III). I still fire this one up occasionally. Lots of user made scenarios will keep you occupied for many hours of wasted time.

Castle Wolfenstein/Doom. Played both to death, and killed a couple of joysticks along the way. Played a slew of clones like the original Duke Nukem and one magic based one which I have forgetten.

Combat Mission:Beyond Overloard (and the rest of the series). The first was fantastic, and I bought the next three as well. If you like squad level WWII strategy games, this one is a must have. Played people from all over the world, and have made many on-line friendships that last to this day.

C&C/Warcraft. The RTS games that started the trend. What more to say?

This is really tough. I'm not that big of a gamer but I give it a go.

Top 5, no order:

Halo (spent most of my Junior and Senior year in high school playing 3v3-6v6 LAN multiplayer games at my best friends house. Many many hours wasted gloriously)

Gran Turismo 3 (the reason I bought a PS3, every GT game since has been a let down in one way or another. GT3 wasn't perfect, but at the time it was in a league of it's own)

Morrowind (Never even got 1/2 way through the game)

Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time

Metal Gear Solid


Honorable Mention: Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Gran Turismo, Everquest, Super Mario 64, Super Mario 3, KOTOR... the list of really really good games goes on.

Forgot to throw Chuck Yeager's Air Combat in the Honorable Mention. I loved the sh*t out of that game

Have not played many video games since 2001. But I'm addicted to Forza 4 now. Ballers choose 6.

Vitrua Cop

Gran Turismo 3

Golden Eye 007

Apache Longbow

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

Initial D arcade game

Have spent more time than I would admit to watching my brother and friends play video games.

Top 5, no order.

1. C&C RA2 - So many memories LANing with this game.
2. Tribes 2 - So many hours logged. Played lots of the mods. Was in a few clans.
3. Baulders Gate 1&2 - Played through them both, multiple times.
4. FFVII & FFX - Played VII countless times. Replaying FFX right now for the first time.
5. SC2 - Such a great game.

oh yea! BG 1&2 are awesome too. Lots of games I forgot about, but what the hell! my top 3 are still unchanged.

X3: Terran Conflict
Final Fantasy X
Portal 2
Gran Turismo 3
Aces High II

Wow, I forgot about Command & Conquer. That was pretty much how I spent my whole freshman year of college.

Would you consider Populous (1989) as a progenitor of the era, however? By my way of thinking, it was really the first mass-market RTS game, containing all of the elements of games that would follow it, including two-player support via dialup modem or RS232 null-modem cable.

Diablo 2
Morrowind
X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
KOTOR

1. Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit - got me into racing games
2. Gran Turismo 2 - got me into racing simulators
3. Diablo - led me to Diablo 2, SC, Dota, LoL, AoE
4. Morrowind - most time time spent play one game in my life
5. Forza 3 - didn't know what I was missing in GT4 until I played this

Honorable mention: System Shock 2 and Half Life. System Shock 2 - probably the first scary game I ever played and the first game I ever bought (and from Blockbuster no doubt). My 4mb video card wouldn't support the amazing graphics of the game, so I had to wait until my parents upgraded to a PC with a 16mb video card. Many frightened hours spent with this unique game. Half Life was just awesome and led me to play HL2 and HL2 Ep1.

The only game I play now is Forza 4. Hence the 3 racing games being the most influential to me.

OH MAN! Populous: The Beginning was pretty cool. Although it was a totally different game from the original Populous.

I suppose so, in a way. I played it, but it never hooked me like later games. For one thing, it seemed like the damn thing never ended. Just went on and on, like simcity. No set-piece scenarios as became the norm; too open ended as I remember. I had completely forgotten about it.

One I forgot to mention that I had a lot of fun playing, but also loads of frustration was X-com. I think I punched my monitor over that game more than any 5 others combinded.

Hell, I played more games on 5-1/2" and 3-1/2" discs than after CDs came out. I used to spend 25 bucks every 6 weeks on a game back in the 90's. Very few were video games - mostly strategy stuff.

Anyone remember the Leisure Suit Larry series? Lots of laughs.

In no particular order.

Half Life series
Goldeneye 007
Halo: Combat Evolved
Final Fantasy 7
Metal Gear Solid
The first few Pokemon games were pretty addictive.
IL-2 Sturmovik 1946

I'm not sure precisely what a set-piece scenario is, and I never played any of the later versions, however I don't seem to recall a problem with open-endedness in the original. Granted, the degree of control which you exerted over your population was much less direct than in later works such as C&C, however I don't recall that stalemating was that serious a problem. Sooner or later, Armageddon would come.

Oh, and Lemmings. The original Amiga version. (The DOS port sucked.)



Yeah, same here. It's funny how many young'uns we seem to have here, judging by how many "modern" games I'm seeing on the list. I'll admit that Portal was pretty revolutionary in terms of gameplay (being that it's an amazingly entertaining and addictive title in which you kill absolutely nothing), but nothing in the Halo / GTA / HL / etc genre strikes me as particularly radical or revolutionary. I'm not saying that there aren't some good titles from this era (heaven knows I'm addicted to TF2), but none of them are really breaking new ground.


Oh, and Wing Commander. Gotta give an honorable mention to the first truly immersive, cinematic, consequentialist , story-based space combat simulator.

in no particular order

Diablo 2
Goldeneye 007
Zelda Ocarina of time
Zelda a link to the past
Final fantasy 5

This thread makes me miss the days of Halo 2 LAN partys and packing your xbox and strapping your TV down in the car with the seat belt, stopping to pick up a case of beer and being up till sunrise hearing random profanities being yelled from every room of the house.

Hmm...I'd probably have to name the games that got me started in gaming, both 1p and multiplayer, just because they hold a special place in my heart

Halo: Combat Evolved
Goldeneye 007
Dark Forces
Myst
Some old submarine game I can't think of
X-wing alliance

Yeah, sadly the good old days of social interaction are dead.

My vote in no order:
Back and White (both)
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Doom (the old one)
Portal's
mind went blank, it'll come to me later. A lot of games come to mind, but they have different merits.

Oh mang....I have a huge list. Top 5 will be hard.

Ultima...1 or 2, I forget which. At the time, it was jaw dropping. I doubt I could stand replaying it now though.
Final Fantasy 3/6 and 7
Street Fighter II, the original. Sooo much time mis-spent, especially at arcades on this.
The original Populous - I remember many, many mis-spent weeks on this evil game.
Favorite hands down is Xenogears. Inb4omgwtfbbq.

Honorable mention: Every Persona game. Especially the original, that was godly and very nearly trumped FF3/6.

5 is too short indeed. More like 50.

Wolfenstein 3D
Mike Tyson's Punch Out
007
Vice City
GT3

Nobody wants to read someone else's list of 50 favorite games. It's 5 for a reason.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1328035309

I never quite reached "badass"... *sigh* opportunities lost...

1. Half-Life (CS, DoD, Natural Selection, They Hunger (so good zombies), Sven Co-op, HL2, CSS, etc.) This game(s) sucked so much of my life for so many years it's crazy.
2. Anarchy Online - My first MMORPG and the 2nd most life-sucking game I've ever played.
3. Quake III Arena - Mostly the Quake III Arena Test, Fun FUn.
4. Planetside - Played the ---- out of the beta, then retail was ghost town and quit.
5. Tie Fighter - SW nerd out.

In the order I experienced them.

1. Diablo - Started when I was 8 years old, thoroughly enjoyed Diablo2 as well, can't wait for D3

2. Unreal Tournament - My first FPS and it was so intense I didn't know what to do with myself, 2k3 and 2k4 were also great.

3. StarCraft - So many memories in this game along with D2 and WC3

4. iRacing - Best racing simulator and my g27 makes it that much more fun

5. Battlefield3 - It's beautiful, the sounds are amazing, vehicles are cool, and the game play is pretty cool.


Other mentions:

Counter-Strike, pre 1.6 mostly, lol
Warcraft 3/TFT, another great RTS and DOTA
World of Warcraft, months of playtime with this game and some great gaming memories
Forza series, I was oddly good at Forza2 from the start, I'm still not sure how I pull off times that I do in Forza4 today either, lol.
Gran Turismo 4, Another great racing game, hope to try out GT5 soon.
Call of Duty:MW, I quit BF2 and BF2142 cold turkey when this came out, mass chaos, reminded me of the UT series a little.
FFXI, everything took FOREVER, but the dynamic of the game was fun for some reason. Rewarding I suppose.

Live, thread! Live!

Choosing only 5 is hard. No order, except for number 1:party:
Not sure about everyone else, but I had about 20-30 other games I wanted to add to this list, haha.

5) Rocket Knight Adventures

4) Need 4 Speed: Hot Pursuit 2

3) Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

2) Tekken Tag Tournament

1) Shadow of the Colossus

1 being most favorite.

5. Counter Strike
4. Cabela's off-road adventures 1
3. X3 terran conflict
2. Need for speed (all of the classics)
1. Freelancer

1. Lode Runner
2. Just the Tip
3. Snood
4. Starcraft: Brood War
5. Red Alert series

I think it was called Xvevious? It was a game on 8 bit Nintendo, I think...or maybe Atari? You flew a plane or something and dropped bombs on buildings...it was so 80's, I loved it.
First most enjoyable computer games I played were "Hunt the Wumpus" on I think it was an Apple IIgs (elementary school). A few years later when 32bit video came into effect, and they started making the pentium processor; I enjoyed Wolfenstein 3D and especially Descent. I wasn't a huge Doom fan, but Duke Nukem 3D was pretty cool.
I probably had every game console ever made before Sony Playstation came out. I had some console that was before the first atari, I can't remember what it was called. Then I had an atari 2600? Then a 7800 I think it was? Then I had Nintendo, SNES, Sega genesis, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguar, Playstation, PS2, and that's where I stopped. I know there was more, but I just don't remember.
Favorite Sega genessis game: Streets of Rage.
Favorite Sega Saturn game: Virtua Fighter.
Favorite Sony Playstation game: Jet Moto 2.
Favorite PS2 game: Grand Turismo 4.
I never bought a PS3 or an Xbox, and I don't play computer games anymore, so I'm out of the loop.

Fooger, you might want to give Freelancer and Black Prophecy a shot. Both are very similar to X3.

Freelancer is an online version of X3 ("Discovery 4.86" expansion pack...free to play online but you gotta buy the cd...amazon 6-7 bucks) . In my opinion even though the graphics are lower poly count, they are better as far as fog goes...and most of space is fog. Black Prophecy is a game i just started playing few days ago. Online as well. Similar controls to TC and Freelancer and better graphics than both however you're only in a fighter ship that you upgrade, you cannot do anything else.

Operation Neptune! That's been bugging me forever. God it looks horrible.

I found my old game too!! Spelled Xevious.

Castlevania on Nintendo also wasted a lot of my life.

Holy crap. I forgot about this game. I used to play it back in grade school! Nice find.

In no particular order:
- Civilization II (1996)
- GTA III (2001)
- Descent (1995)
- NFS Porsche Unleashed (2000)
- Earth & Beyond (2002) - EA, I still hate your guts for axing this!
Honorable Mention:
- Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987)
- F.E.A.R. (2005)
- EVE Online (2003)

I still play games and I'm even in the industry but for some reason very few of the newer games seem to leave a mark with me. That said, there are tons of good games coming out and I enjoy many of them - they are somehow just not Top 5 material for me :)

- Tom

Hehe on a side note did you guys know EVE Online is also known as Microsoft Excel - The Game.

Whos excited about Guild Wars 2?

Touché :)

Half Life
Just Cause 2
Supreme Commander
Doom2
Duke Nukem 3D

Half Life 1/2, cs, cs:S, TF, TF2, Ns, Ns2(beta), DoD, Sven co-op, The specialists, any other hl mods.

BF1942, desert combat mod.

Starcraft, starcraft 2, warcraft 3.

Halo(original)

Wow (not going to say its amazing, but it did have me addicted for a few years)

Unreal Tournament (original)

FF7
soul calibur
astrotit - taught me that sperm come from dicks
okami
devil may cry

-FF7 & X. Replaying through both now. I think the series may just be ruined now though.
-Warcraft 2. Literally the first program I installed on my brand new laptop. Logged so many hours its ridiculous. Nom Noms
-Breath of Fire series. Loved 3 & 4. Have over 80 hours in each one.
-Skyrim- First new game that I actually was addicted to in a LONG time.
-Legend of Zelda-A link to the past. I have probably played through this game ten times, only on SNES. No idea how many times if you count the GBA remake or all the times I played it on an emulator.

Honorable Mention-Pokemon (still whip out the old gameboy on occasion) Civilization 2, Age of Empires,

I don't think it would be possible for me to break it down to top 5 games... I can break it down by top 10 games for Consoles and Top 10 for PC

Top 10 console games in no particular order..

Ff7
FF3
Mario 3
Goldeneye
Super Mario kart
Ocarena of time
Perfect dark
Mega man x
Mario rpg
Secret of mana

PC top 10 in no particular order

Half-life (this includes cs)
Doom
Starcraft
Diablo/Diablo 2
Command and conquer red alert
Civ 3
Warcraft/Warcraft 2
Tribes
Shadowbane
WOW

I forgot Megaman. My mother took me to the Video Galaxy every tuesday where she would rent her movies for the week. Until the SNES came out the only games I ever rented where megaman, EVERY WEEK, except one in which I rented pitfall.

Total Annihilation
CS/CS:S
Metal Gear Solid
Arkham Asylum/City
Armored Core series

Honorable mention is Trine 2 which was just on sale on Steam over the weekend. Really fantastic, utterly gorgeous side-scrolling puzzle game. Reminds me a lot of Donkey Kong Country, actually

Man I remember playing Doom deathmatches here at work with 2 other guys when it first came out.

A few unmentioned.

Ultima 1 back on my Commodore 64
Ultima IV
Serious Sam (most fun single player FPS)
Dragon Age:Origins

My all time favorite video game is Defender. I built a MAME cabinet just to play it. Custom control panel and everything.

Falcon 4
Grand Prix Legends
Fallout 1
System Shock
Total Annihilation

also awesome:
IL2, XCOM, GT Legends, Borderlands, Dark Souls, Operation Flashpoint/ARMA series.

I won a race at Spa in GPL once in the Eagle. Sometimes I tell random people this on the hope that someone somewhere will realize what a massive accomplishment that was.