I can’t fucking BELIEVE I forgot:
- Lode Runner
- Heiyankyo Alien
- Snood
- Spelunker (Famicom)
9 Likes
I’m gonna put this post in two threads because I played through DoDonPachi recently and would have put it on my list but realized in my near 20 years of playing it I have never cared about the story or the scoring. And more than that can any of you even tell me what happens in Stage 3?
I am not saying Stage 1 and 2 and the aesthetics aren’t great (THE MISSION STARTS NOW). They are! Just as a game I have played a lot when I started considering it it fell apart. I didn’t care about the stages. I didn’t have a favorite mook or a boss. I couldn’t hum the soundtrack. I have never aimmed to loop it.
It has been a game I liked and thought I loved but the reality doesn’t bare that out. There are many other shooters I have sunk my teeth into.
3 Likes
Woah what?
1 Like
I’ll talk more about my individual picks later but right now I’m going to co-sign some stuff and maybe list some more stuff.
Mario Paint
Peggle
Bubble Bobble
Warning Forever
Desert Golf
Celeste
Dog Days
Bio Menace
Ski-Free
Tomb Raider (1996)
Hover!
Math Blaster
Blaster Master
Styx: Master of Shadows
Master of Orion
Deus Ex
Dishonored
Prey (2017)
GTA IV
All of the eyemaze Grow games
Grow Home and Grow Up
Snake Pass
Mad Max
Crackdown
Saints Row 2
6 Likes
Everyone nominate this. It is in my list that I am constructing with HONOR and INTEGRITY.
1 Like
i was gonna write little blurbs about each of the games i posted that no one else nommed since i figured they’d be the most interesting to talk about but i don’t think i know how to write about games good
it’s like everyone who both uses vim and knows what THAC0 is got together and formed an obscuratinist cult, headed by the world’s pettiest and most vindictive DM. low-level play is like one of those physics comedy games but with figuring out which command you’re supposed to use to do anything before you die of starvation, or drinking from a fountain and suddenly dying to water moccasins because you didn’t have the random table memorized. high-level play is an absurdist comedy where you learn about rings by dropping them down sinks and cheat at sokoban by turning boulders into giant hunks of meat. unlike anything else i’ve played, it feels less like the game was deliberately designed than it is the accidental result of decades of easter eggs. unlike later roguelikes which are short enough to make permadeath, “daily runs” etc feel reasonable, a game of nethack can last days and you will die to a typo. it is one of the most player-hostile things i’ve seen. i love it dearly.
14 Likes
To balance the grotesque console bias here I am posting a PC-only list, go pound sand half of my favorite games
Doom 2 (Doom has better levels but no Revenant and no SSG is no sale)
Riven
Full Throttle
Gone Home
SOMA
Unreal
Arx Fatalis
Thief 2
Half-Life 2
Portal
Team Fortress 2 (before hats, after the first set of alternate weapons)
Dark Messiah OMM
SimCity 2000
Streets of SimCity
Medieval 2 Total War
Master of Orion 2
Durandal
System Shock
Morrowind
Daggerfall
Diablo
Rocket Jockey
Star Wars Galaxies
Uru
Rainbow Six 3 + Athena Sword
X-Wing vs TIE Fighter
Wing Commander 3
Thronebreaker (it’s me, the world’s only Thronebreaker fan)
Max Payne 2
Quantum Break
Fallout
Torment
Alpha Protocol
Transistor
Europa Universalis 4
Her Story
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
STALKER
Receiver 2
Serious Sam
Left 4 Dead 2
Superhot VR
Wolfenstein TNO
Zeno Clash
Jedi Knight
Outlaws
EDIT: I guess I psyched myself out with what counts as a “PC game” but yeah these count
Max Payne 3
Outer Wilds
13 Likes
I can explain! Trying to think of a few games I enjoyed a lot that would probably never make it to the top of anything.
I think Killzone 2 is a little underrated as it has a well-paced campaign and some very good presentation. I’m not just talking about graffix. I really prefer the sluggish, weighty feel of it since it reflects how I expect the huge dumpy characters to move and makes me feel like I’m actually carrying 100+ lbs of military equipment. I actually like the art direction as well and thought Helghan was a cool setting for space-WW2. It felt very uninhabitable and the environments sell why the Helghans take such an issue with being stranded on a barren rock. Settings at the time favoured this kind of dreary bloomed out look with loads of atmospheric haze and I think Killzone 2 kinda made it work for itself with the setting .
As a shooter it mixes up mission objectives and environments at a pretty even pace. I think the campaign had a good throughline and was very replayable. Weapons feel like they weigh a ton so that even pistols feel like little cannons. The gun design is also as stubby as the characters which reinforces the weighty feel. I remember liking the metal textures a lot. The multiplayer was pretty unique too. It had 7 classes and the main mode basically had you playing through multiple game-types (King of the Hill, Team Deathmatch, VIP, Grab the flag etc.) in a continuous string so it kinda felt like a campaign mission but with two teams of human players.
The alphabro, military masculinity also gets eroded away as the game progresses culminating in the deaths of the most sane characters and the survivors eventually committing various war crimes that leave the ending deflated in a thematically appropriate way. Killzone 3 by contrast was awful and forces the player to commit literal genocide just to kill a Tony Blair lookalike.
I remember the opening movie pretty clearly. A neat little video game opening montage (almost no cuts) and Brian Cox was pretty good in the few lines he was given.
It’s extremely dumb and there’re much better shooters I should have on my list but I think it’s worth revisiting. It had a lot of weight placed on it as some massive Sony exclusive at the time (alongside the graphics debacle) but if you see it as just a sequel to Killzone (a middling PS2 shooter) it’s basically a B-game with a AAA budget which is rare enough to make it interesting.
5 Likes
No Punch-Out fans?
1 Like
Arm Joe, the indie fighting game based on Les Miserables
8 Likes
godzilla ps4
nekketsu kouha kunio-kun
2 Likes
Soleil / Crusader of Centy
Shining Force 2
Twinsen’s Odyssey
Daggerfall
Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Ys Book I & II
Dark Souls
Phantasy Star
Phantasy Star IV
Dragon Quest V
Dragon Quest XI
Dragon Quest Builders 2
Sword and Fairy 6
Ganbare Goemon 2
Chrono Trigger
Yakuza 0
Dynamite Headdy
Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Fantasy Zone 2 3DS
Outrun
Interstate '76
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Ecco the Dolphin
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
King of Dragon Pass
Gain Ground
No One Lives Forever 2
Rocket Slime
Splatoon 2
CLOP
Snow Bros
Fatal Frame 2
7 Likes
No need. It’s the clearly superior game to Ikaruga. Don’t @ me. I mean, OK, maybe it isn’t. I dunno. I’ve just gotten so very tired of Ikaruga being The Only Shooter People Play. I even like it. But I am tired of it.
2 Likes
Nah I’m gonna @ ya
Radiant Silvergun’s powerup system sucks and the weapons always feel a but too weak.
Ikaruga has the perfection of you are always at your strongest you don’t have to jump through hoops to even engage the game.
I also after 20 years still have no idea how I am supposed to Engage with Radiant Silvergun. I start on Stage 3A??
Soukyuugurentai might be superior to both.
3 Likes
Stage 3A is just stage 1. The game is told non-linearly and indicates it with the stage numbers. Also shout outs for justifying STG looping in the story later on.
The Saturn version was nice because it just let you keep the level-ups between plays, so you never had to worry about what to do, but really you don’t need it even in the arcade version. Just use the guns you want to get more powerful and they get more powerful.
Ikaruga is just so…there. Doesn’t hurt that it is now Nicalis making money on it, but that is separate from its qualities as a game. It’s chaining system is more generous than Silvergun’s, but the 360 port of Silvergun fixed that by letting you use the Ikaruga one.
1 Like
seconding heianko alien and for the frog the bell tolls / for whom the frog tolls / what have you.
adding falcom’s Dragon Slayer, a standout in the celebrated and compelling vidcon genre of “horrible maze” which is also an early example of games that contain a social message.
13 Likes
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gimmick!
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castlevania 2
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waterloo
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dragon quest i&ii (SFC)
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dragon quest 3
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lufia 2
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umihara kawase
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final fantasy vi
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kirby’s dream course
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super mario world
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legend of zelda: link’s awakening
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puyo pop
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castlevania: aria of sorrow
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rhythm tengoku
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mother 3
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doom 2
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half-life
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faselei!
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deus ex
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super mario 64
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legend of zelda: majora’s mask
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human sports festival
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crw metal jacket
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elevation action returns
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age of empires 2
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final fantasy tactics
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heart of darkness
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suikoden 2
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bomberman fantasy race
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xenogears
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dark savior
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street fighter alpha 3
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ico
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ace combate zero: the belkan war
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cave story
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metal gear solid 2
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metal gear solid 3
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Xanadu NEXT
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ikaruga
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valkyria chronicles
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red dead redemption
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kane&lynch 2: dog days
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minecraft
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counter strike: global offensive
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spelunky (hd)
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dark souls
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papers, please
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journey
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videoball
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titanfall 2
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tetris 99
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killer queen
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threes
edit:
- transistor
10 Likes
Wait is opera omnia not a final fantasy gacha game
2 Likes
I got the Vita alpha version back when it was still up but the beta version’s Humble Store link just kicks me back to the front page 
Great live arrangement of the soundtrack
1 Like
My list, in order of preference:
Shadow of the Colossus
Cave Story
La-Mulana EX
Dark Souls
Half-Life 2
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
The Silver Case
To The Moon
Hotline Miami
Ultraviolent aesthetics, super accessible game play, and this exceptional soundtrack that wants you to feel like the psycho protagonist. This game is perfect in what it does and it’s the best of its kind. The soundtrack is something I had to download in my mobile phone and keep listening for the months after.
Hollow Knight
Super Mario 3D Land
Undertale
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The best blend of a 3D exploration game and 2D action platformer I have ever seen. Retrospectively, it shows that it was the early 3D era, in the best possible way. There is an immediacy to fights (and everything else) and environment design that I have have not found anywhere else.
Klonoa: Door To Phantomile
This game is really special. A carnival of masks, a wonderfully designed platformer, which is (on the PS1) quite challanging and the perfect length to never lose charm. The music are dreamy and really exceptional, they stick with me.
Katamary Damacy
I am a child in a toy shop and everything is sticking to me.
Ico
Resident Evil REmake
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors
TxK
Steins;Gate
Steins;Gate Zero
Snatcher
Exceptional, even as just a Youtube video.
Super cool story, and the way it is told.
Strong '80s atmosphere.
Celeste
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Blackwell (series)
Phoenix Wright Trilogy
Blade Runner
Guacamelee
Great blend of: humor, metroidvania, platforming, beat-em-up.
Shovel Knight: Spectre of Torment
Best Shovel Knight sub game.
Dragon Quest XI
Lush, immersive, relaxing.
Castlevania: Rondo Of Blood
I love this game, even if I like it more when I play it with the little girl (easier version).
The music is great, the action is great, the game is very atmospheric. My favourite Castlevania.
Fallout 1
Fallout 2
Grim Fandango
Planescape Torment
Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis
Gabriel Knight (original version)
The old woman who narrates the game is exceptional.
Syberia
This game was underappreciated when it came out (at least by Italian magazines), probably because its puzzles are less complicated than in a Lucasarts game. But you are navigating through a piece of art, it is visionary and it’s beautiful to be there.
I love to play it in French.
Metro 2033 Redux
This game does so many things so great, that its few tedious sections can be forgiven. Wonderful atmosphere, great random characters, Moscow under the snow is lovely. Great weapons. The paranormal phenomenons remind me of siberian shamanic legends.
Chrono Trigger
That music. That story.
Monkey Island 3
Alpha Centauri
Nanashi No Game 1 & 2
The description below is very well made and accurate. One of my favourite horror videogames.
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/nanashi-no-game/
VVVVVV
Bubble Bobble
7 Likes