Sulphur on 30/12/2016 at 06:28
Quote Posted by Shadowcat
I know exactly what you mean. My introduction to Descent was watching someone else playing this unknown game... I've never forgotten how they flew out of a tunnel into a chamber, headed for a hole in the 'ceiling', and were suddenly in a tunnel again -- which I knew was perpendicular to the original one,
but you couldn't tell any more. My brain did a triple-take, and probably started reorganising bits of itself. WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!? If the metric were "time-to-mind-blown" then Descent would be my pick, no question.
System Shock is my most memorable game. For me, no other game raised the bar in so many ways in one fell swoop. Perhaps if I'd played certain other games before it then I might have a different answer, but at the time I played System Shock it was an absolute revelation for me, and I'm confident that no other game is ever going to top that experience.
I know I'd feel the same way about Thief and SS if they'd been the first games I'd ever played from LGS, but the first one for me was Terra Nova, and while it taught me to expect the gameplay bar to be raised beyond heights imagined before, it also wasn't quite the most impactful game by design - FMV had already been done better by Wing Commander 3 by then.
driver on 30/12/2016 at 08:15
Tricky to pick just one, so I think I'd have to go with Morrowind. It was the first game I played that just allowed you to roam anywhere on a huge map. I remember the first time I played it, going through Seyda Neen thinking 'Oh, this is rather pretty.' When I first stepped out into the world I consulted my journal which told me to go to Balmora, so I checked my paper map and figured 'Hmm, it's only a couple of inches on here, I'll spend my money on equipment and walk it rather than take the Stilt Strider' Half an hour later and after a minor detour I arrived in Pelagiad. I checked the map again and suddenly realized 'Holy crap, this place is huge!' I must have sunk hundreds of hours into that game, just wandering about, exploring caves and just enjoying the freedom it offered. All of the games I'd played before had their content in strictly defined areas or levels that you passed through (usually only once) and there was a disjointed feel to things. To have a single constant area of such a (comparatively) massive size was incredible.
Renzatic on 1/1/2017 at 18:28
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
I just recently replayed Quake 1, and can report that it is indeed awesome.
Now that you've finished it, you need to play the (
https://www.quaddicted.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2043) Arcane Dimensions mod.
It takes everything there is to love about Quake, and makes it even more awesome.
froghawk on 2/1/2017 at 04:02
Quake 1 was definitely the best one.
This is going to be a strange answer, but... Invisible War. I'm probably a bit younger than most of you here, and when I played the demo, it was like I'd discovered the type of gaming I'd always wanted but didn't even know I was looking for. Yes, in retrospect: the game is a mess. Luckily for me, I was heavily anticipating Doom 3 at the time, and picked up the D3 preview issue of PC Gamer, which happened to include a disc with Deus Ex and Thief 2. So I stopped playing IW after you leave Seattle for the first time then played through the original, then returned and finished off IW, and together they changed my conception of what games could be. And following that with getting introduced to Thief... obviously I never looked back, as I am here!
And in a different way, I'm going to have to say Silent Hill 2. The Deus Ex games changed my conception of what gameplay could be, but Silent Hill 2 showed me that games truly could be works of art where incredible art/visual design, music/sound design, and writing can come together to form a larger whole that's truly moving and more than the sum of its parts. But ultimately DX wins out, since it influenced what I went on to play far more than SH2 did (since there aren't many other games in the survival horror genre or otherwise with that kind of razor sharp artistic focus).
montag on 4/1/2017 at 03:31
This is an easy one for me, the feeling I am still looking to re-experience even today. Tomb Raider! I was in my early 30's and had just left a job that I worked for over a decade, with NO days off.(NONE, EVER, for ANY REASON) Maybe that was the reason, but no other game has drawn me in quite like that one. I can remember staying home on weekends when my roommates were out tearing up the town, just to play TR1.(on PS1, iirc) Running, jumping, flipping, climbing, shooting and solving those puzzles was my whole world for a short but glorious, never to be re-created, period of time.
It was almost 10 years before I found anything to come close to that, and that was T3. Deadly Shadows was my introduction to Thief, so I will always have a soft spot in my heart for it. I had some love for Splinter Cell, but other than TR1, 3rd person games never grabbed me on that level again. So Tomb Raider will forever (maybe) be my most memorable game...except for this one...I have a recurring dream, at least every other month, of a game (or not a game?) perhaps someone here can help me out. In these dreams I am a Mechwarrior-like thing, but I "ski" around, rather than walk like a Mech. If these dreams are based on a game, as I believe they are, then whatever game that is would have to be my #2 choice, just based on the fact that for whatever reason, that game (?) has stuck in my subconscious mind.
thrawn_121 on 4/1/2017 at 04:17
Sounds like Heavy Gear, Mech type bipeds with wheels or tracks on the feet for higher speed travel.
montag on 4/1/2017 at 04:34
Thanks thrawn_121! Think that is the one, based on the description on Wikipedia. Kinda glad to know I've not totally lost it. As to why I have dreams about it, perhaps I have lost it.
edit: have two more games to identify, must make a gen. gaming thread about them.
icemann on 4/1/2017 at 04:59
Both of the Heavy Gear games were excellent. If you loved Mechwarrior 2 or Mercenaries, go play that. Same engine (I think), same company who made them (Activision).
montag on 4/1/2017 at 05:16
You sir, are a fountain of information! All of the Mechwarrior games were favorites of mine. So much so that I am playing MWO right now. Feel free to come kill my Locost any time. (you can't fail to recognize my name there) Looking forward to MW5. MWO is kinda fun, but it's been years since I can hold my own in pvp, CSS was the last time I really could annoy any of you young folks out there.
