Yesterday we did a quick whip around the office asking people what their favourite game was for every year they’ve been alive. For me, it started from 1987 with a DOS version of Operation Wolf that I’m pretty sure was pirated from Singapore somewhere; that’s where my Dad used to buy games whenever the ship had to go into drydock.
But to go in depth a little deeper: out of that list, what’s your favourite game of them all?
The fun with the “favourite game for every year you’ve been alive” list is all the memories it brings up. And whenever something like this comes around, that’s what I tend to go for: the games that imprinted themselves on me the most, the games that I simply couldn’t forget.
That’s kind of why I’ll always have Counter-Strike as one of my favourite games. And it’s why I’ll always have Heroes of Might of Magic 3 there, because I remember plowing through that demo, day after day, night after night, until I got the full version for my birthday.
But the best game?
Well, it’s maybe not the best game. But it’s one that I’ve never beaten, and it’s one that I’ve never forgotten. It’s a game that I’ve made sure is on the hard drive of every computer I’ve ever owned, every laptop I’ve ever carried, even if I have to do some DOSBox magic to get it working.
Heaven & Earth. One of the strongest gaming memories I had as a little kid, and something that still puts a smile on my face to this day.
Even though those fucking cursor puzzles can die in a fire.
What’s been the best game of your life?
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69 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: The Best Game Of Your Life”
Probably World of Warcraft.
It’s the closest thing I’ve got to a lasting digital ‘home’.
Voting WoW too, I suppose I have no other option now that I’ve covered 1/4 of my body in its art permanently.
I had to think about this one for awhile as these days I really dislike WoW and its hard to separate those feelings from WoW of old.
I honestly cant think of a more magical gaming experience than playing Vanilla WoW and seeing the scope and depth of a game for the first time, the experience of meeting so many great people that would become long time friends.
I feel like it really ruined gaming for me in the long run as nothing else has ever really compared and I have been constantly chasing that feeling.
This is my problem as well, only with Everquest. A good portion of my Top 10 gaming moments are from that game, but tend to be earlier in the game, rather than at the end of the 7 years I constantly played it.
In the end, I realised that even though I wasnt having the fun I had before, I’d still invested seven frikin years into the game, and still had those great memories. And became the standard I measure any other MMO against.
Some of those EQ moments were as simple as a corpse run when the game first came out, just to get cloth pants and a rusty sword back.. Because of how little the game held your hand, it became so much more epic than you’d think.
Probably Dragon Age: Origins. With Duke Nukem 3D coming a close second.
Link to the Past
closely followed by FFVII
and then WoW rounds out the top 3
Metal Gear Solid 3
Ah. Good call!
That’s a seriously tough one for me. There’s many games that I consider to have had a big impact on me, but all from different genre’s, so it’s hard to break it down to say there’s one over all.
I’d have to list a few, cos they’ve all had major impact, but all in different ways.
Having said that, I’d probably go with Quake 2, Industry Giant 2, Ultima 7, Gothic 2, Street Fighter 2, Elevator Action, The New Zealand Story and maybe Crime Fighters and Europa 1400.
They would be the games I consider to have had a major impact on me through my life. All for very different reasons, but I consider each to have equal weighting of importance.
Rocket League
probs the best game iv played judging it by that time was morrowind, played that for so long.
Hatsune Miku Project Diva F 2nd on PS Vita. The feeling of nailing an extreme perfect is incomparable.
Honourable mention to the Mass Effect Trilogy (for the feels).
I really recommend Future Tone if you have a PS4. It doesn’t have some of the features of F 2nd (ie. The edit mode) but the core gameplay is great and an over 200 song library means there’s always something to perfect.
It’s seriously on my list. I’m somewhat scared though that once I get it my kids will hog the PS4… 🙂
Sextris. Tetris (best game ever) meets boobs (best thing ever).
That’s super tough because things always change and as you grow up the games you like can change so much. I’d have to say that the three games that resonate with me a lot are Final Fantasy VII, Suikoden II and Breath of Fire III. Each one also has strong memories attached to them so that probably elevates them in my memories even further.
HOMM 3 for exactly the same story as Alex above, played the demo 1000 times until I finally convinced my parents to buy it. I don’t think I have spent more hours on anything and that includes the 1500 hours I’ve spent in Dota 2. I still go back to HOMM 3 frequently.
It’s between Deus Ex (all bar Invisible War) and Mass Effects
God that’s a hard one.
One game that came as a revelation to me was Thief: The Dark Project. It looked a little ugly back in the day, but it was one of the first proper stealth games I ever played. I remember reading articles about it, talking about revolutionary concepts, like different surfaces, different sounds, the enemies tracking sound cues, investigating bodies (which you could move!) I mean, this is just two years after Quake and it was incredibly advanced mechanically. There’s still aspects of level design that blow me away.
Then there’s Daggerfall, which dared me to dream about possibility in video games. See, I only had the demo at one point. You were trapped in a Dungeon and the demo ended when you got out. But I read about this game in magazines. I dreamed big when a magazine said it was something like “5 times the size of great Britain”.
I also figured out that all of the in-game texts were included in the data directory for the demo, and I went crazy reading about them. I wanted to visit these places. Become a scholar and research the Faerie Rings (you couldn’t, and they didn’t exist). Learn the dragonish skill and talk to dragons (all language skills did not function in the full game). Make ridiculous custom spells (this worked, for the most part, and they really should bring that back). Become a cat burglar and climb through second storey windows (the fiction described characters doing this, but your character still couldn’t). Visit the isle of artaeum which disappears and reappears whenever it wants (not featured, and the game was not set near Summerset). Even though a lot of the things I imagined never were in the game or really any game Elder Scrolls or otherwise… it still made me dream about the possibility of video games, and even when I finally got the full version… I still adored it. It was a revelation of possibility in games. I bought a ship, a horse, became a vampire and climbed to the top of various Knightly guilds and such, bought a house, became a powerful sorceror, summoned Daedra on their respective Holy Days.
Thief: The Dark Project is a truly magnificent game that is still a benchmark which stealth games must be measured against – which is one hell of an effort for a game released in 1998.
I barely remember much of, say Deus Ex: Human Revolution. But I still have vivid memories of Constantine’s Manor. I still remember how spooky the ghostly murmurs were in that terrifying Cathedral level.
Dishonored did a lot to bring back my Thief appreciation, but Dishonored’s tools are very powerful. There’s something about thief’s limited tools that I adore.
Not to mention Thief AI was often excellent. I recall guards investigating extinguished lamps, open doors, missing guards, etc in Thief 1. Many later games don’t even bother with this level of subtle AI.
I remember playing this for the first time at a mate’s house with a head full of acid on NYE 2000. And then we went to do some ravin’ in the Melbourne exhibition building. I’m not sure if it’s a good game or not, but the memories I have of it are beautiful.
Dude. I had a similar experience with Demon Souls. My friend was talking it up, and I was like, “oh, that JRPG game?” “Nah, it’s not really a jrpg”, and I’m like, “It’s an RPG from Japan, how good could it be?”
So one time I was at home and was just coming down from an acid trip. My mate rings me up and he’s like, “yo, can I come over, I’ll bring demon souls and you can have a go.”
It was amazing. I was rolling through so many barrels with that satisfying barrel crunching sound. And then he took me for a drive to get some pizza. Best come-down ever and a beautiful memory to attach to a game series I love.
Yeah Thief is definitely my favourite, to this day the only game I’ve been able to play just listening to the sounds of the guards rather than visuals.
Funnily enough I bought the game at the same time as the first splinter cell. I still have thief installed, don’t know where my splinter cell disk is.
It has to be FFVII for me – people will argue and say others are better, but to me, nothing can compare. It was one of the first games I got on my PS1. I didn’t even have a memory card, so my brother and I would play all weekend, without sleeping and not turning it off. We made it to the second disc a couple of times! After a while we got a memory card and we must have put more than 500hrs into that game we explored every inch of it and it was magical. I don’t think anything can recapture that…
Mechwarrior 2, the intro still gives me chills to this day.
https://youtu.be/-X3GD0UnBCk
This! Don’t suppose you play MWO by chance?
Not anymore, too burned out on the early clan tech “balance”.
Mechwarrior 2 was a great game, and an outstanding technical achievement.
There is a reason it was bundled with graphic cards for like three years. Its absurd to think how hard it also pushed said cards.
Mech2 Mercenaries remains one of my all-time favourite games ever. Its stories, mech/income management, and mission options were mind-blowing to me.
The worst part about MW2 is that it was the peak for the series. It just sort of declined after MW2 Mercenaries (not saying its all bad, but MW2 was just that good).
MW4: Mercenaries was a nice nod to the original, and as close as the series ever got to being that good again, but yeah, it was still downhill.
I still have this memorised after all these years.
Knew what this would be before I even clicked it, it is so good.
Showing my age, but nothing has ever surpassed Elite on my BBC.
I feel like this question can’t help but be steeped in Nostalgia for me. Every thought I have connects to the first time I saw the potential in gaming.
1. Playing The Last Half of Darkness as a kid was the first time a game scared me, I realised how much more games could affect my attachment to characters if I was active in the story as opposed to passive.
2. Playing Flashback made me fall in love with the idea of open world game play. In level two, you have to work random jobs to save up money to pass the level. Even though on replays it’s obvious how linear the level is, it was the first time I saw the idea of a hub world where you could make your own choices.
Flashback was dope. 24 Frames per second! It’s all the human eye can see! To be fair it seemed pretty smooth at the time.
baldurs gate 2, diablo 1, world of warcraft maybe
Glad to see someone else putting up Baldur’s Gate 2. It was the highlight of the series, but there was so much emotion and so many stories within it. The heartache of betrayal, happiness of growing and sharing adventures with characters you grew to love, the sense of victory and grandeur when defending Irenicus, and the triumph of ending the saga in the end… all topped off with the touching, heartfelt and also bittersweet epilogues.
For me there’s yet to be a series to match it for scope and overall delivery – Mass Effect looked destined to rival it, but then failed with its closing game.
A definite shout out to Thief: The Dark Project as second place.
Yeah Baldur’s Gate 2 was my immediate thought as well. There’s been some phenomenal RPGs since (Witcher 3, Morrowind, Dragon Age: Origins) but nothing stands out as much as that game. You must gather your party before venturing forth.
Shadow of the Colossus.
Metroid Prime (1):
As a kid, few games have ever made me feel this immersed. I loved the scanning system for lore, the bosses, the environments, the progression and sense of exploration and discovery in an alien world, the soundtrack, and everything about it was a mix of older and newer styles of gaming. The only downside were the controls. Metroid Prime is probably the closest thing I have ever experienced to a perfect game.
JSRF. It is the only game I have played over and over and over without getting frustrated
Man I loved both of these games.
Psychonauts I say as I look at my collection of pyschonaut figures around my desk
Three way tie:
The Last of Us
Mass Effect 2
Borderlands 2
FFVII and FFIX are also up there…
Minecraft, only after you eliminate the kids and mod it some more.
Though any multiplayer game is good as long as you have a proper community to play with.
It’d be a toss up between Morrowind and Fallout 2. But also maybe Goldeneye.
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.
The time I sunk into that game were some of the best.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Been gaming for 30 years……this is the best game I’ve played. Such wonder…….
Final Fantasy VII is also up there.
Halo CE. I was 19 when it came out and living with a couple mates in a 2 story townhouse. One mate would bring a projector from work home on weekends and we’d get truckloads of people over to get drunk and play splitscreen before hitting the town. Some of the best memories of my life.
It’s a 3-way tie between:
Xargon – first game I ever played
Sonic 2 – first console game and first game I ever finished as a kid
And Final Fantasy X – it was the game that introduced me to the world of FF. I’ve bought multiple copies of the game and played through it so many times I’ve lost count.
damn, this is difficult.
if i go by sheer hours ive played (which is an indication for how much ive enjoyed a game) then all pretty equal would be Team Fortress 2, GTA5, Skyrim and Lord of the Rings Online.
all of these i enjoyed very very much and hold dear.
other stand outs for me would have to be Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassins Creed Unity, Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect Trilogy, Need for Speed Underground, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Tales of Symphonia and Grandia.
trying to pick one of these, fark thats too hard. each one holds some very fond memories of gaming for me.
Tough call, but I’d have to go with Dark Reign. Hate to think how many hours I poured into the online multiplayer. Gaming was so much easier when I was a student! Also had a soft spot for it because it was developed locally.
It has to be SOCOM 2 and 3 and 3-Combined assault
BEST game ever for multiplayer, community and memorys
In terms of pure joy it brought me, and how attached I got to the game:
FF VII, WoW and Eve Online tie.
Portal 2. No other game has consistently made me laugh out loud throughout. Brilliant writing and Stephen Merchant is fantastic as Wheatley. A close 2nd would be Metal Gear Solid 3.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
I have honestly never played a game that has evoked so much emotion. I really do feel like I am having my own personal journey when I play this game.
Morrowind – When this came out it was pretty much everything I had wanted from a game
Close Runner Up:
Link to the Past / Ocarina of Time / Secret of Mana
WOW Vanila, XCOM2, fallout 2 (not even going to try the best one)
Tempting to say BotW, it is pretty damn fantastic. Though I don’t think I’ve pumped as many hours into anything as I have Splatoon. And my usual go-to would probably be Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.
But I think F-Zero X + Expansion Kit might possibly be king. At least until the wind changes.
I met my wife playing World of Warcraft so I have to say Morrowind. 😛
Morrowind was the first game I played that properly immersed me in a grand adventure. Limited fast travel, no map markers, and confusing/hidden trails all led to me exploring the crap out of the huge world.
I appreciated the fact that you could kill anyone in the game world, even characters vital to quest chains. That I could walk into a dungeon 10 levels above me and either die, or get ridiculously kitted out.
No hand holding, no scaling world, and no idiot proofing getting in the way of a proper immersive experience.
I’m going to have to say Duke Nukem 3D.
When I was 8 or 9 my parents dragged me into a computer shop to buy our first family computer. While they were talking to the salesman I noticed they had a demo of it set up on a display machine which I instantly thought was the best game ever. It took a good couple of years (on account of the MA15 rating) but I finally managed to talk my parents into buying me a copy, which I still have…. and still play occasionally with the HRP mod.
Runners up:
Morrowind, Z, Fallout 2, Warcraft series (including WoW)
Counter Strike I still dabble and have played since beta 1. It’s easy to get hooked if you can become a part of a team or community.
World of Warcraft is up there, same as Quake.
Bloodborne, although being new the 2 weeks I savored slowly enjoying every tiny animation, symbol, mechanic and piece of lore has championed Ocarina of Time as a child.
I still enjoy the taste of eucalyptus strepsils as I had a cold when I got my ps4 and poppped the disc in on my birthday July 2015. I could have got a 1tb Ps4 with Gta 5 for 30 extra dollars but I wanted Bloodborne and it came with a 500 gb model (stupid in retrospect but now I have a pro anyway). I can remember each night of those 2 weeks, what I had for dinner and breakfast as well as what I watched in bed. Defeating that fucking flame dog was so hard, I got the platnium trophy and put it away till the DLC rolled around which is just as if not more nostalgic now.
Going by number of hours played, I believe it would be Final Fantasy Tactics.
Dota 1/2. The fact that I have played it almost constantly for more than 10 years and I’m still terrible but still enjoy the hell out of it speaks volumes about the level of complexity and balancing that goes into it. Icefrog is a damn genius.
Honorable mentions have to go to Half Life (and probably Hl2), Diablo (original=best) and Master of Orion 2 (still the best 4x of all time, although the reboot is also pretty rad).
I’m also pretty sure that Witcher 3 should get a mention somewhere, although I think you need to give it about 10 years before including it in the hall of fame.
I think I’m going to go with Halo. I can’t really choose one game in particular but it’s the series that got me into video games, at least seriously.
Then 6 or so years after that first christmas with my xbox I joined xbox live on Halo 3 and it introduced me to online multiplayer outside of browser games like Runescape.
Notable mentions are Grabbed by the Ghoulies, the Gears of War series and the Oddworld games (really only Munch and Stranger)
Resident Evil 4
Castlevania SOTN
Dark Souls 2