faetal on 15/6/2014 at 09:44
Dark Souls (for a few minutes).
Jason Moyer on 15/6/2014 at 11:53
For me the "games before you die" is stuff you should play, irrespective of quality. As I mentioned, Time Traveler is horrible, yet I still think everyone should try to track down a working cabinet and give it a go just because, 20+ years later, it's still fairly crazy playing a game that's a 3-D hologram. Some other games that didn't quite make my arcade list were Tron and the sit-down Firefox cabinet, neither of which are particularly amazing but are something everyone should experience at some point. Also the arcade versions of Defender and Robotron 2084, if only to marvel at the controls. I also listed a few games which, while insanely popular at the time, seem largely forgotten nowadays and are still amazing (Mr. Do! and Yie Ar Kung Fu).
The "desert island games" list is stuff that would keep me content forever, and I also based it around the idea of having just one platform available (so I couldn't smuggle my PS3 for MLB 14 goodness).
demagogue on 15/6/2014 at 16:05
The list I made in this direction is more like going year by year, from like the late 70s on, of games I thought essential for each year. I was thinking of a list for my future kids to play in a rough order (if they were keen to it), so they could get a feel for the history of gaming in context; I mean what games were coming out around the same time, and why certain games were so revolutionary given the games that came before them. It's an unorganized and long list though, so I can't exactly just post the whole thing.
mothra on 17/6/2014 at 13:40
Desert Island:
- Thief I/II
- Deus Ex
- STALKER
Before I die:
Bloodborne on PC
Qooper on 17/6/2014 at 14:58
I was told that if you play Master of Orion 3, you die, so I'm going to say MOO3.
In other news, I haven't yet played through either UW, but that has been because I've been saving them. Same goes for Arx Fatalis and Thief 1 & 2. I _HAVE_ completed both System Shocks, which means I can never ever play through them for the first time again :(
faetal on 17/6/2014 at 15:16
In seriousness now (in no particular order):
Stalker SoC - because of the feeling of place that the zone has. No game comes close to this for atmosphere.
Skyrim - It's just so majestic, sprawling, full of things to do and there are a there are a tonne of different ways to play it.
Jagged Alliance 2 - In my opinion, the best turn-based tactical game out there. Good replay potential due to the different mercs and weapons there are to try.
Faster Than Light - It's randomised, so has technically unlimited replay value and it's just so easy to jump in and out of, plus there are so many different combinations of things to try out.
Deus Ex - A gold standard in games which make you feel like the protagonist in a large plot.
Dark Souls - Amazing atmosphere, brilliant sense of exploration and genuine feeling of desolation, loneliness and being intimidated by the challenges you face, as well as a corresponding sense of achievement for overcoming them. Wide range of weapons and play styles also gives pretty decent replay value.
There may be others, but these are the ones which immediately come to mind.
Aja on 17/6/2014 at 21:20
Sometimes I find myself playing a game because it's mindlessly fun or addictive, but there are a small number of games that I consider to have gone beyond that and actually enriched my life in some way. A lot of that I'm sure comes down to when and where I was when I played them, so I wouldn't call them "games you must play before you die" but rather "games I'm glad I've played before I die."
Super Metroid for fostering a love of exploration and atmosphere and providing so many tense and thrilling moments for my younger self.
Zelda, A Link to the Past for being possibly the first game for me that was more of a mental challenge than a dexterity test, plus the excitement of finally getting the yellow sword.
Thief Gold for which I mainly owe my love of ambient music, which has become a major part of my life. If I hadn't played Thief and been so captivated by its atmosphere, I doubt I'd be pursuing experimental music in real life. Thief makes me appreciate dreaming because its strange atmosphere is one of the few waking activities that come close.
Zelda, Majora's Mask for being thrilling and mysterious and moving almost entirely through character interaction.
Metal Gear Solid 2 For blowing my 15-year-old mind with its metaphysics and bizarre humour and amazing graphics.
Super Mario 64 for how breathtaking and wonderous it was back in 1996, seeing a fully 3D world for the first time.
Katamari Damacy for being one of the few video games, I would argue, that truly takes advantage of the uniqueness of its medium, and it has a wonderful sense of humour and the best soundtrack ever, which I still listen to these days.
Morrowind for being the first game I really lost myself in and the first with which I spent several hundred hours before completing it.
Gran Turismo, specifically 2 and 3, which taught me how to drive before I knew how and gave me a great appreciation of the physical and artistic aspects of automobiles.
Dark Souls for rekindling that feeling of mystery and exploration that I hadn't felt in gaming since I played the games above.
Runners up:
Okami
Goldeneye 007
Thief 2
Half Life 2
Bioshock/Bioshock Infinite
henke on 18/6/2014 at 07:08
Quote Posted by mothra
Before I die:
Bloodborne on
PCWell I guess you might be able to play it through an emulator in 2024 or so. :erg:
june gloom on 18/6/2014 at 19:36
Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Half-Life 1 and Fallout 1. Those 4 games -- but especially the latter 3 -- saw me through some very, very bad times as a teenager.
