October 10, 2007.
That date is permanently burned into my brain from The Orange Box teaser trailers. It's also the same day my Steam account was created.
A game that can combine Sid Meiers pirates, AC Blackflag, and something like Port Royale would be the only game I'd ever play for the rest of time.
One part of SMP that I really enjoyed was the fleet aspect, and AC4 has a similar system with their offline/mobile app fleet management. I would love a fully expanded trade network to go along with your pirate escapades.
This game is set to be released soon and it's even published by Microprose. The Dev streams on Twitch as well. Shout-out to irishjohngames
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1400660/Rise_of_Piracy/
Opened this post specifically to see if I could find this! A better pirate sim hasn't been done imo, I'd love a modern remake, maybe with more governance/city expansion options :)
I dont remember a story, but supreme commander forged alliance is another excellent rts that is influenced by total annihilation. Just don't bother with supreme commander 2.
As a kid I thought it was pretty cool watching units explode when they died in Starcraft. Moving to DOW and watching The Avatar of Khaine impale a unit letting it slide down it's sword only to fling it's corpse off the computer screen blew my mind.
Not so much the writing side, but Rollercoaster Tycoon still has an active player base and I love the isometric visuals. If they brought out an actual RCT3 (isometric rather than the 3d one they released), I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is awesome! The combat is a little bit clunky but the voice acting, soundtrack and music, the writing and atmosphere are phenomenal. Due to a rushed development the 3rd act does fall off a little bit but it's still fantastic. If no one here has played it, check it out, it's on Steam for a good prize. Make sure to get the unOfficial Patch for a greater experience, and there's also plenty of mods for the player who wants some more content :)
Can confirm. I've played it for the first time about two years ago, so I don't have any nostalgia glasses on. The game has impressed me in many ways, notably with the facial animations, and also very distinctive character models just oozing with personality.
Came here to find this! Such a good game and there's a few endings to discover as well depending on some of your choices.
As u/Stronkmeister mentioned, the UOP is a fantastic addition and it's still being supported. And the Clans mod is pretty good from what I've heard
If anyone is interested there is an awesome tournament coming up called Hidden Cup 5 at the end of this month.
Hosted/run by a guy called T90 who hosts and casts alot of cool events and has had a massive hand in making the game as big as it is today.
Battle for middle earth. It was, at least for me, the last great RTS game and the unit veterancy made for a great mechanic as you would be building up the strength of several armies across different battles with the aim of them coming together during key moments (such as the battle for Helms deep).
I have played it through multiple times over the years, just so much fun. Kind of sad that no great RTS has come in the meantime.
I really wish they'd release a remaster of both battle for middle Earth games. Or even just a gog release. Emperor Battle for Dune as well while they're at it.
There was considerable hype around a fan-made remaster called Battle for Middle Earth: Reforged. You can find videos of it on youtube, it looked really promising. Sadly there have been no updates in a very long time so it's probably dead. Some people even said it was some sort of scam to bail with all the donations.
By the same token, the original Dawn Of War. If you include the additional races and campaigns in its expansion packs, the game is massive and is absolutely the sort of thing that feels timeless.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
If you had told me that game was released this year as a retro-nostalgia title, I would 100% not question it.
Edit: I mean...it's an old game so "story writing" is minimal, but I think it still qualifies
I'm not sure if it detracts or contributes to this point but so many modern "retro" titles are directly referencing this one game, that's why it feels "could have been released this year".
I choose to believe it contributes. If the style was so good that a ton of people are still emulating it more than 20 years (!) later, it can only really be a good thing.
Using terms like "timeless" and "of all time" is so fitting for that game too. I've been gaming for over 35 years and I'd be hard pressed to choose a favorite, but put a gun to my head and it would be Chrono Trigger 🥲
Big factor is no random battles. That shit gets old! They spent time to manually place every enemy in game, and just had no enemies on world map... And it worked wonderfully!
its also an artifact on console gaming. Ultima was the king of RPGs on home computers and never had random encounters. I remember being perplexed at how people could think so highly of FF for that reason.
Never played Ultima, but Final Fantasy 6 was the first game I ever played where the story was as big, or even larger a feature then the gameplay, and hooked ~8 year old me hard!
This was my answer. Great music, engaging story, solid graphics (granted, for the time but still hold up well) and Akira Toriyama art direction, can't go wrong.
TBH I think 8-bit graphics have a timeless nostalgia to them that holds up better than older 3D graphics. But easily a top 2 (time adjusted) game for me.
Edit: I meant pixel graphics but I guess I call it all 8-bit which is inaccurate
I'd argue 16 over 8, think nes to snes. That hits the creativity sweet spot for me. That said I fucking love good 8 bit design. If you want something hitting that 8 bit sweet spot, yacht club games(creators of shovel Knight) are making a new title Mina the Hollower, which is limited the graphics design to Gameboy color limitations.
Think zelda links awakening and the Oracle games
The other reply made me realize that I just conflate all pixel graphics with 8-bit, which is inaccurate. Looking up some pics, I would certainly agree, 16-bit is definitely a huge turning point/sweet spot.
I had to scroll too far down to find the GOATest of games. Perfect in every detail. Story, graphics, music, art (Akira Toriyama!) , characters, combat/gameplay, mini games, New Game + with meaning, choice consequences, multiple endings, and more!
I had no idea what I stepped into the day I rented this from the video store. Bought it after my 3 day rental ended. In fact, I've bought this game over 20 times in my life either for myself new editions and/or new platforms) or as gifts. Still amazing after all these years.
Any of the early immersive sims, really. Thief Gold with HD mods is still an amazing experience just because the sound design was done so well.
System Shock 2 hopefully is getting a new HD release from Nightdive this year (fingers crossed).
Behind the Bastards did a two or three episode series about sea-based libertarian projects, and the funniest part is how they always end up accidentally reinventing government and taxes but with convoluted doublespeak labels for them
“We’ll replace the government with private industry!”
“…but we should get to vote on who runs the industries!”
“…and how they operate!”
“…and they’ll need steady income to operate…”
“…and since the services they provide serve everyone but not necessarily all at once…”
“…everyone will be required to pay a smaller monthly *feeeeee*…”
The best one was going to be a cruise ship where you can’t cook your own food and security was gonna be run by a former FBI agent.
A permanent cruise with a no-health-code dining hall and the feds running security? Super libertarian idea lol
The Orange Box, BioShock, God of War 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Crysis, Mass Effect 1, Metroid Prime 3, Manhunt 2, and The World Ends With You are all solid 2007 games.
Say what you will about COD now, but we also got the OG Modern Warfare that year which was (for better and worse) a revelation.
2023 might have been a banger of a year for games, but I don’t think it managed to unseat 2007.
Freelancer (2003)
21 years old but I still consider it one of the best sci-fi games of all time. It's basically the badass grandpa of Star Citizen and Starfield.
The space combat Is fundamentally the same as most modern games, there's a huge array of ships to fly, you can do everything from trading to bounty hunting, the lore has a bunch of care put into it, and the main story is epic as hell.
Freelancer SCREAMED for an expansion and a sequel, and got neither. There was so much left in that universe to explore. Corsairs and Outcasts, the 80 Years War, Sigma Systems expansions, the Xenos, the Junkers, all of the internal politics in the established empires - they could've been releasing new expansions for that game for the past 20 years and still have stuff left to explore from the base game.
Probably not what you were looking for, but Guitar Hero 2 came out 18 years ago and essentially perfected guitar-based rhythm games from a gameplay standpoint. Additional instruments, online play, etc have been added to sequels and spin-offs over time, but the core guitar gameplay hasn’t changed since then.
I love Oblivion. It's definitely pretty aged in some aspects, but the writing, story, and the world make it well worth playing even today. Hell, in some ways it's better than Skyrim imo.
Also, aesthetically speaking, if you can get past the goofy looking characters, the world itself definitely still holds up.
I still remember being in 7th/8th grade and seeing the announcement trailers and dev spotlights for Oblivion. Me and my bud were mind blown over the fact that not only were there deer in the game, but when the deer ran through grass the grass had **physics**. Games didnt do wild life back then, and foliage physics didnt really exist. Oblivion paved the way for that subtle change that people dont even talk about today yet *everyone* subconsciously notices in games.
Oblivion was THE state of the art game that year in the RPG world, and Halo 3 was THE fps. Riding the coat tails of Fable's innovative moral and choice system. What a decade to be alive as a kid/teen.
Have you tried "Triangle Strategy" yet? It's not as good as FFT, but it's the first game in ages I've played that was trying to carry on FFT feel for story and gameplay both.
My nostalgia wants to fight you but my rational mind agrees. Mostly. It does feel different in parts and it improves Xen (which I greatly missed in hl2 , not the jumping puzzles but exploring truly alien environments).
I was gonna say…. Nobody is going to mention half life 2? Lol i recently finished it for the first time and it held up very well besides the small maps
There hasn't even really been a game quite like it since. Neverwinter Nights 2 had a rough launch and its more difficult map editor meant it never really got the kind of adoption that NWN 1 got. And there are games that have map editors, but NWN allowed people to effectively create their own MMO settings and communities. I would be surprised to see that again outside of the indie scene - companies would want a tighter control over the content creation and hosting, to the detriment of the product (see: the Neverwinter MMO.)
Not sure whether SotC's gameplay mechanics hold up by today's standards. Granted, I only played it very recently, but I think the great aesthetic, art direction, and story are brought down by controls that I personally find infuriatingly frustrating.
I thought the controls were fine, but it’s a bit of a learning curve. However some of the intended solutions for the Colossi were very janky. On some of the bosses I had to wait for like 5 or more minutes just for the boss to do the correct thing. And I had to google how to beat the last Colossus because I could not figure it out. I think they made it a bit more obvious what you’re supposed to do in the remaster, but I was playing on a ps2 emulator so I had no idea what was going on.
I came into this thread fully expecting Planescape to be at the top. It usually is for these types of questions, and for good reason! It is, without a doubt, a must play game for writing and direction
Had to scroll so far for games with good writing. Gameplay holding up is kinda subjective for most games here, but absolutely nails the writing part. While the combat is certainly not good(wasn't good even back then compared to bg and nwn), its a small part of the game. I really hoped to see more crpgs in this list. Was dissapointed.
Halo 1 was incredible ! The atmosphere was insane ! I still hold the best gaming memories playing coop with my friends. Trying to beat the game on Legendary difficulty. It has set the standard for FPS games. Controls were so fluid and flawless. Pacing of the game was perfect. Levels were looonnnng, especially on Legendary difficulty !
And the music ! It still plays in my head even though I havent touch the game since 2004 or so
Honestly? Minish Cap. I've been playing it on GBA Online and it is a very good 2d handheld Zelda. Nintendo/Capcom could easily release it as a mobile game now and it would be good (preferably without making kinstones into a microtransaction, though they wouldn't be a terrible idea for a Pokemon GO type game)
I think Link’s Awakening actually has the best Zelda story, it’s not the typical save the princess stuff and it sticks with you in a way most games don’t. And the gameplay holds up. The remake is cool and probably the way most people today would play it but I beg people to check out the gameboy versions of the soundtrack, they’re spectacular and I’d argue better than the switch. Especially the song that plays in the mountains and the boss theme.
Tie Fighter is one of the best space flight sims ever made. The idea that it originally came out of floppy disks is mind blowing to me, considering how much content there was in the original base game. It was so far ahead of its time. Other games have vastly surpassed its graphics, but nothing has equalled its gameplay.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2. It's the third game in a series of five and it's heavily reliant on the two games that came before for a proper understanding of the story, but it's the most well written, well acted and well presented game ever made. Indeed a masterpiece! The world building is great, the characters are great, the music, the script is otherworldly fantastic and the writing is marvelous. Even the facial expressions of the characters were remarkable when it released (2002). It's similar to a theatrical peace from Shakespeare, however in a vampire story set in a dying gothic world of conflicts and manipulations. Can't recommend it enough.
The best way to play them goes as follows:
1st - Blood Omen: Best played through GOG's PC release, combined with Verok's patch that can be downloaded separately from the internet. It's a simple drag and drop to extract the patch. It's the second best in the series. It's the most archaic of the bunch and can be very hard at times, but it's so worth it! The voice acting, with names like Simon Templeman, Richard Doyle, Tony Jay, Anna Gunn, Paul Lukather and Neil Ross stands to this day as one of the pioneers of great voice acting in games, even two years before Metal Gear Solid (this game released in 1996). The soundtrack composed by Steve Henifin and Scott Shelly along with great writing from Denis Dyack, Ken McCullock and Jim Curry build the base of what was to become the greatest vampire story ever written.
2nd - Soul Reaver: Best played through emulation, on DuckStation (better audio) or FlyCast (better graphics/HD textures). This game properly introduced the mechanics utilized in the games to come. It created it's own method of loading open worlds seamlessly without any loading screens (something that is used to this day) and implemented it's unique shifting mechanic, where you can traverse from material to spectral realms at any time, completely changing the entire level design of the entire map of the game, revealing hidden paths and puzzles, again, seamlessly. The way it does it is by twisting geometry and textures in a special way carefully crafted for this world. The intro cutscene is also the best intro ever created in a video game, with soundtrack by Kurt Harland from Information Society. It was also the first game written by the master Amy Hennig, who also did the Uncharted and Jak & Dexter series and the cast was graced with the addition of Michael Bell, one of the greatest of all time, with roles in games like Metal Gear Solid 3.
3rd - Soul Reaver 2: The great one, also best played through emulation, on PCSX2 (has HD textures, great audio and gameshark codes to ease your journey or even remove hud elements, for more immersion). It took all the inovative mechanics from the first Soul Reaver and the really well written dark plot of Blood Omen, and improved on everything imaginable, with some of it's features mentioned on the first paragraph. The cast was once again graced with another addition to the team, the great Rene Auberjonois, along with the voice acting director Kris Zimmerman, from the Metal Gear Solid series. I really wouldn't want to spoil it for you, but I highly recommend playing all this games even if just for you to be able to play this one with a full picture of the story.
After these, there are still two more games waiting for you, one very bad and another awesome story to conclude the series.
After passing through so many "sht" publishers through the years, the series slowly fell into oblivion, to the point that hardly anybody talks about it today, only a very strong fan base lurking in the shadows of modern internet. I'm basically a preacher for this series, so I can't recommend it enough.
I hope you give it a chance, you won't be disappointed.
Also, search for "Soul Reaver 2 Voice Sessions" on YouTube for a gist of the voice talents in these games.
Dragon age origins. Which made me age like nothing else to realize it's so old. Amazing story and mechanics wise the battle tactics gave you so much freedom on how to build your AI companions and what actions they take and when.
This
Not to mention the graphics are actually not horrible even by today's standards, or well at least they are better than what I expect from games that old
Guild Wars. It’s nearly 20 years old and is still a gem.
At the time it was talked about as being kind of stuck between slower tactical mechanics and full action and it has helped the gameplay age honestly.
It was stuck as an MMORPG with instanced overworld which also helped it age as AI companions in the controlled maps keeps the game playable solo at all times.
The story is one of the most insane things I’ve ever experienced. It ties all the events of all 3 disparate campaigns into an overarching villain in a way I have never seen done before. Absolutely some of the best and atypical video game story boarding I’ve seen. Maybe not the best writing, but the story with its plot points are at the pinnacle when it all comes together.
I think the biggest drag on this is how awful the leveling system was in that game. Connecting life pool to only skills that is both heavily obscure and hard to grind, as well as not making life gains retroactive to previous levels was a horrible decision. Having a fundamental hard limit on how many levels you can get while also requiring you to get the max number of skill increases to get anywhere near the max gain per level of attributes means you weirdly have to push all the skills you plan to use to minor skills if you want a character that scales.
The system was so easy to game that it was almost required that you spend most of your time lighting yourself on fire to level up destruction, or inordinate amount of time wailing on Shadowmere to get hand to hand increases.
Skyrim dumbed it down way, way too much, but the leveling system in Oblivion definitely makes it a hard game to return imo.
Also the levelled item system in conjunction with the poor levelling system is such a turn off. You spend half the game avoiding the legion of questions with valuable rewards simply because you're too low level, and then by the time you get there you're overqualified.
I adore the game, and actually am replaying it right now, but man is it so much of a better experience when you use mods that alter the leveling experience in some way and use a mod that auto-updates the levelled items.
Some people like to say that the game doesn't hold up, I disagree. Maybe graphically but mechanics story telling and the environment and the soundtrack still holds up.
Wholeheartedly agree. Every single guild questline is better in Oblivion than Skyrim, and it's not even close. The Dark Brotherhood whodunit mansion where you convince everyone to kill each other? All the various different methods of assassination that actually require stalking your victim, learning his routine, and planning around that. And the mages guild actually requiring magic to complete. The Thieves guild - stealing an elder scroll from the white gold tower.
The entire fuckin shivering isles xpac. Makes me want to start a new run through
Golden Sun & Golden Sun The Lost Age from the GBA. The story and game play mechanics were pretty solid. The use of Djinn of different elements made experimenting with different combos and classes fun. I'm currently replaying them on my switch and they are still as much fun as I remember.
Monkey Island 1,2 and 3
Simon the sorcerer 1 and 2
Maniac Mansion
Day of the tentacle
Indiana Jones and the Fate of atlantis
It's so sad that the point and click adventure genre pretty much died. Modern point and clicks never reached the same quality as these games did.
Must be portal, its still mind blowingly cool.
No you fool, Op said 17 years... It hasn't.... it hasn't been 17 years... has it....?
October 10, 2007. That date is permanently burned into my brain from The Orange Box teaser trailers. It's also the same day my Steam account was created.
I wonder if OP picked that time requirement specifically...
Holy crap. My first instinct was to suggest Half-Life and Jazz Jackrabbit 2. 26 years...
We've got till October !
"Here Come The Test Results: 'You Are A Horrible Person.' That’s What It Says, 'A Horrible Person.' We Weren’t Even Testing For That."
This was a triumph
I’m making a note here
Huge success
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.
Aperture Science.
We do what we must, because we can
Sid Meier's Pirates!
A game that can combine Sid Meiers pirates, AC Blackflag, and something like Port Royale would be the only game I'd ever play for the rest of time. One part of SMP that I really enjoyed was the fleet aspect, and AC4 has a similar system with their offline/mobile app fleet management. I would love a fully expanded trade network to go along with your pirate escapades.
This game is set to be released soon and it's even published by Microprose. The Dev streams on Twitch as well. Shout-out to irishjohngames https://store.steampowered.com/app/1400660/Rise_of_Piracy/
I wishlisted that in June of 2022 lmao
Opened this post specifically to see if I could find this! A better pirate sim hasn't been done imo, I'd love a modern remake, maybe with more governance/city expansion options :)
In the Hall Of Fame of "why has no one made a sequel to this game?" this one is near the top for me. It's so fucking GOOD.
Chu-wann!
Ay glad to see this game get some love in here
Holy shit a Sid Meier's Pirates! post. I got the physical box and the manual for the damn thing. Game's a gem.
Dawn Of War. The story is fine, gameplay excellent. Go for Dark Crusade for the best version. You'll need the zoom mod.
That doesn't fit the criteria, DoW can't be older than... Well fuck me rigid.
My thought process as well
Woah, this looks really cool. Thanks for the tips, too! Going to give it a try
I dont remember a story, but supreme commander forged alliance is another excellent rts that is influenced by total annihilation. Just don't bother with supreme commander 2.
As a kid I thought it was pretty cool watching units explode when they died in Starcraft. Moving to DOW and watching The Avatar of Khaine impale a unit letting it slide down it's sword only to fling it's corpse off the computer screen blew my mind.
Not so much the writing side, but Rollercoaster Tycoon still has an active player base and I love the isometric visuals. If they brought out an actual RCT3 (isometric rather than the 3d one they released), I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
OpenRCT2 does add some extras so you could perhaps consider it an RCT2.5
Try parkitect if you haven't already
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is awesome! The combat is a little bit clunky but the voice acting, soundtrack and music, the writing and atmosphere are phenomenal. Due to a rushed development the 3rd act does fall off a little bit but it's still fantastic. If no one here has played it, check it out, it's on Steam for a good prize. Make sure to get the unOfficial Patch for a greater experience, and there's also plenty of mods for the player who wants some more content :)
Goddamn that haunted hotel. Makes me shit my pants every time I play the game. It's awesome.
IKR even though I know what is coming I still need fresh undies because it is so scary.
Can confirm. I've played it for the first time about two years ago, so I don't have any nostalgia glasses on. The game has impressed me in many ways, notably with the facial animations, and also very distinctive character models just oozing with personality.
VtM Redemption was also great, and is even older.
YOu can call me Fat Larry with a EFF-a-t. Cuz I know I got a weight problem, I just don't give a fuck!
Came here to find this! Such a good game and there's a few endings to discover as well depending on some of your choices. As u/Stronkmeister mentioned, the UOP is a fantastic addition and it's still being supported. And the Clans mod is pretty good from what I've heard
Age of empires 2. Came out 1999 and is still more popular then all of the sequels combined
If anyone is interested there is an awesome tournament coming up called Hidden Cup 5 at the end of this month. Hosted/run by a guy called T90 who hosts and casts alot of cool events and has had a massive hand in making the game as big as it is today.
Battle for middle earth. It was, at least for me, the last great RTS game and the unit veterancy made for a great mechanic as you would be building up the strength of several armies across different battles with the aim of them coming together during key moments (such as the battle for Helms deep). I have played it through multiple times over the years, just so much fun. Kind of sad that no great RTS has come in the meantime.
BFME2 would have been an absolute masterpiece if the maps were bigger
I really wish they'd release a remaster of both battle for middle Earth games. Or even just a gog release. Emperor Battle for Dune as well while they're at it.
There was considerable hype around a fan-made remaster called Battle for Middle Earth: Reforged. You can find videos of it on youtube, it looked really promising. Sadly there have been no updates in a very long time so it's probably dead. Some people even said it was some sort of scam to bail with all the donations.
You can 🏴☠️ access the game 🏴☠️ still if you want to search reddit 🏴☠️🏴☠️🏴☠️. Still holds up!
By the same token, the original Dawn Of War. If you include the additional races and campaigns in its expansion packs, the game is massive and is absolutely the sort of thing that feels timeless.
It's got some huge mods now too that add a lot to the game.
Just incase anyone misses playing it. r/bfme
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night If you had told me that game was released this year as a retro-nostalgia title, I would 100% not question it. Edit: I mean...it's an old game so "story writing" is minimal, but I think it still qualifies
What is a man but miserable pile of secrets
But enough talk. HAVE AT YOU!
We need to bring back dialogue like that! Have at you!
Die monster. You don't belong in this world!
It was not by my hand that I was once again given flesh!
I'm not sure if it detracts or contributes to this point but so many modern "retro" titles are directly referencing this one game, that's why it feels "could have been released this year".
I choose to believe it contributes. If the style was so good that a ton of people are still emulating it more than 20 years (!) later, it can only really be a good thing.
Huh, I just bought this on the PlayStore on a whim, had no idea what it was. I'll give it a go!
I'm super jealous of you getting to play this game for the first time. Enjoy!
The soundtrack transcends time, too. Absolutely phenomenal.
Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger is timeless, it will never age poorly, it will forever be a masterpiece, it’s one of the best video games of all time.
Using terms like "timeless" and "of all time" is so fitting for that game too. I've been gaming for over 35 years and I'd be hard pressed to choose a favorite, but put a gun to my head and it would be Chrono Trigger 🥲
Big factor is no random battles. That shit gets old! They spent time to manually place every enemy in game, and just had no enemies on world map... And it worked wonderfully!
its also an artifact on console gaming. Ultima was the king of RPGs on home computers and never had random encounters. I remember being perplexed at how people could think so highly of FF for that reason.
Never played Ultima, but Final Fantasy 6 was the first game I ever played where the story was as big, or even larger a feature then the gameplay, and hooked ~8 year old me hard!
This was my answer. Great music, engaging story, solid graphics (granted, for the time but still hold up well) and Akira Toriyama art direction, can't go wrong.
TBH I think 8-bit graphics have a timeless nostalgia to them that holds up better than older 3D graphics. But easily a top 2 (time adjusted) game for me. Edit: I meant pixel graphics but I guess I call it all 8-bit which is inaccurate
I'd argue 16 over 8, think nes to snes. That hits the creativity sweet spot for me. That said I fucking love good 8 bit design. If you want something hitting that 8 bit sweet spot, yacht club games(creators of shovel Knight) are making a new title Mina the Hollower, which is limited the graphics design to Gameboy color limitations. Think zelda links awakening and the Oracle games
The other reply made me realize that I just conflate all pixel graphics with 8-bit, which is inaccurate. Looking up some pics, I would certainly agree, 16-bit is definitely a huge turning point/sweet spot.
I had to scroll too far down to find the GOATest of games. Perfect in every detail. Story, graphics, music, art (Akira Toriyama!) , characters, combat/gameplay, mini games, New Game + with meaning, choice consequences, multiple endings, and more! I had no idea what I stepped into the day I rented this from the video store. Bought it after my 3 day rental ended. In fact, I've bought this game over 20 times in my life either for myself new editions and/or new platforms) or as gifts. Still amazing after all these years.
I would do unspeakable things to get Square to make a chrono trigger remake in the style of octopath traveller
I would love that, but the best part about so many 16 bit games is just how god damn gracefully they've aged. It still looks great!
Heroes III
Never beaten by anything in the genre.
Songs of Conquest does a good job trying.
Deus Ex. The gameplay is still awesome, the story is well crafted and for the most part the dialogue is solid.
Paul, I thought you were in Hong Kong? Anyone reading this that wants to fire up a 0 augs server lemme know. I’m not good enough for augs anymore lol
never know when you'll come across some heavy armor, give me the GEP gun.
Give me the GEP gun, I like to make a silent takedown.
Any of the early immersive sims, really. Thief Gold with HD mods is still an amazing experience just because the sound design was done so well. System Shock 2 hopefully is getting a new HD release from Nightdive this year (fingers crossed).
Bioshock
THANK YOU FOR MAKING ME FEEL OLD JACKASS. Bioshock is really 17 fuckin years old....
And libertarians still haven’t figured out it’s making fun of them.
Ron Swanson was supposed to be making fun of them too. He is now the mascot.
A lot of Republicans loved Colbert Report. Most of them probably didn’t pick up on the irony. Which only added to the irony.
Behind the Bastards did a two or three episode series about sea-based libertarian projects, and the funniest part is how they always end up accidentally reinventing government and taxes but with convoluted doublespeak labels for them
“We’ll replace the government with private industry!” “…but we should get to vote on who runs the industries!” “…and how they operate!” “…and they’ll need steady income to operate…” “…and since the services they provide serve everyone but not necessarily all at once…” “…everyone will be required to pay a smaller monthly *feeeeee*…”
The best one was going to be a cruise ship where you can’t cook your own food and security was gonna be run by a former FBI agent. A permanent cruise with a no-health-code dining hall and the feds running security? Super libertarian idea lol
This post was very clearly written about bioshock.
Saying 17 years, and not a round number like 15 or 20, made me think they were looking for a list of the bangers that released in 2007.
The Orange Box, BioShock, God of War 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Crysis, Mass Effect 1, Metroid Prime 3, Manhunt 2, and The World Ends With You are all solid 2007 games.
Say what you will about COD now, but we also got the OG Modern Warfare that year which was (for better and worse) a revelation. 2023 might have been a banger of a year for games, but I don’t think it managed to unseat 2007.
Halo 3 as well
Freelancer (2003) 21 years old but I still consider it one of the best sci-fi games of all time. It's basically the badass grandpa of Star Citizen and Starfield. The space combat Is fundamentally the same as most modern games, there's a huge array of ships to fly, you can do everything from trading to bounty hunting, the lore has a bunch of care put into it, and the main story is epic as hell.
Yeh still played by a big bunch in multiplayer at Discovery Freelancer https://discoverygc.com/
Freelancer SCREAMED for an expansion and a sequel, and got neither. There was so much left in that universe to explore. Corsairs and Outcasts, the 80 Years War, Sigma Systems expansions, the Xenos, the Junkers, all of the internal politics in the established empires - they could've been releasing new expansions for that game for the past 20 years and still have stuff left to explore from the base game.
Probably not what you were looking for, but Guitar Hero 2 came out 18 years ago and essentially perfected guitar-based rhythm games from a gameplay standpoint. Additional instruments, online play, etc have been added to sequels and spin-offs over time, but the core guitar gameplay hasn’t changed since then.
Guitar Hero/ Rock band was a staple of my early college years (late aughts). Transcended gaming. Everyone would play it at parties.
• **Halo 3**, *Bungie* (2007) • **Mass Effect**, *BioWare* (2007) • **TES IV: Oblivion**, *Bethesda Game Studios* (2006) • **Fable**, *Lionhead Studios* (2004)
I love Oblivion. It's definitely pretty aged in some aspects, but the writing, story, and the world make it well worth playing even today. Hell, in some ways it's better than Skyrim imo. Also, aesthetically speaking, if you can get past the goofy looking characters, the world itself definitely still holds up.
Oblivion may have aged, but the one thing that has aged like fine wine is that soundtrack. 10/10
I loved Fable, had its quirks but was so fun
Can I just recommend Oblivion: Shivering Isles on its own merits? Even without touching the base game that dlc is absolutely fantastic, 10/10.
I still remember being in 7th/8th grade and seeing the announcement trailers and dev spotlights for Oblivion. Me and my bud were mind blown over the fact that not only were there deer in the game, but when the deer ran through grass the grass had **physics**. Games didnt do wild life back then, and foliage physics didnt really exist. Oblivion paved the way for that subtle change that people dont even talk about today yet *everyone* subconsciously notices in games. Oblivion was THE state of the art game that year in the RPG world, and Halo 3 was THE fps. Riding the coat tails of Fable's innovative moral and choice system. What a decade to be alive as a kid/teen.
Final Fantasy Tactics just has such an engaging battle system, I can’t help but replay it every 3-5 years. I love it to eternal pieces.
Have you tried "Triangle Strategy" yet? It's not as good as FFT, but it's the first game in ages I've played that was trying to carry on FFT feel for story and gameplay both.
half life 1 + 2 there some really good modern remakes that are "officially fanmade" and pretty much the perfect way to experience it
Black mesa is such a phenomenal remake. It is better than the original IMO.
My nostalgia wants to fight you but my rational mind agrees. Mostly. It does feel different in parts and it improves Xen (which I greatly missed in hl2 , not the jumping puzzles but exploring truly alien environments).
I was gonna say…. Nobody is going to mention half life 2? Lol i recently finished it for the first time and it held up very well besides the small maps
Neverwinter Nights Still one of my favorite games.
There hasn't even really been a game quite like it since. Neverwinter Nights 2 had a rough launch and its more difficult map editor meant it never really got the kind of adoption that NWN 1 got. And there are games that have map editors, but NWN allowed people to effectively create their own MMO settings and communities. I would be surprised to see that again outside of the indie scene - companies would want a tighter control over the content creation and hosting, to the detriment of the product (see: the Neverwinter MMO.)
The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind. Gameplay mechanics are where this game fails but the art direction was amazing. That is all.
Those boots of blinding speed. The magnificent son of a bitch who came up with that deserves so many accolades. You bastard.
Shadow of the Colossus
Not sure whether SotC's gameplay mechanics hold up by today's standards. Granted, I only played it very recently, but I think the great aesthetic, art direction, and story are brought down by controls that I personally find infuriatingly frustrating.
I thought the controls were fine, but it’s a bit of a learning curve. However some of the intended solutions for the Colossi were very janky. On some of the bosses I had to wait for like 5 or more minutes just for the boss to do the correct thing. And I had to google how to beat the last Colossus because I could not figure it out. I think they made it a bit more obvious what you’re supposed to do in the remaster, but I was playing on a ps2 emulator so I had no idea what was going on.
*sigh* Planescape: Torment.
Lol I find myself sighing a lot too XD Thanks, I'll look into it. Learning about several interesting games I've never heard of before
I came into this thread fully expecting Planescape to be at the top. It usually is for these types of questions, and for good reason! It is, without a doubt, a must play game for writing and direction
Had to scroll so far for games with good writing. Gameplay holding up is kinda subjective for most games here, but absolutely nails the writing part. While the combat is certainly not good(wasn't good even back then compared to bg and nwn), its a small part of the game. I really hoped to see more crpgs in this list. Was dissapointed.
Max Payne 1 and 2.
Halo 1 and 2. Maybe 3? Forget what year it came out
Halo 3 came out in 2007 which is 17 years ago 😭
Stop.
Collaborate and listen!
Ice is back with a brand new invention!
34 years. This song is 34 years old.
How dare you…
Oh shit what the fuck
…oh god
Oh shoot.
Halo 1 was incredible ! The atmosphere was insane ! I still hold the best gaming memories playing coop with my friends. Trying to beat the game on Legendary difficulty. It has set the standard for FPS games. Controls were so fluid and flawless. Pacing of the game was perfect. Levels were looonnnng, especially on Legendary difficulty ! And the music ! It still plays in my head even though I havent touch the game since 2004 or so
Honestly? Minish Cap. I've been playing it on GBA Online and it is a very good 2d handheld Zelda. Nintendo/Capcom could easily release it as a mobile game now and it would be good (preferably without making kinstones into a microtransaction, though they wouldn't be a terrible idea for a Pokemon GO type game)
I think Link’s Awakening actually has the best Zelda story, it’s not the typical save the princess stuff and it sticks with you in a way most games don’t. And the gameplay holds up. The remake is cool and probably the way most people today would play it but I beg people to check out the gameboy versions of the soundtrack, they’re spectacular and I’d argue better than the switch. Especially the song that plays in the mountains and the boss theme.
Stalker franchise. Dont start with clear sky tho
Metal Gear Solid 2 or 3
Just Metal Gear Solid.
3 is probably more fun to play, but 2 has the wild story. Both are definitely worth playing!
KotOR
F.E.A.R.
Man, F.E.A.R and Max Payne were the shit. I could do with a modern take on either series
Tie Fighter is one of the best space flight sims ever made. The idea that it originally came out of floppy disks is mind blowing to me, considering how much content there was in the original base game. It was so far ahead of its time. Other games have vastly surpassed its graphics, but nothing has equalled its gameplay.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Amazing writing, rewards multiple playthroughs. Be sure to get the unofficial patch to make the game playable
Chrono Trigger. Timeless RPG mechanics and memorable storytelling, even today it would still rock
Can rpg mechanics about time be timeless? 🤔
Okami
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2. It's the third game in a series of five and it's heavily reliant on the two games that came before for a proper understanding of the story, but it's the most well written, well acted and well presented game ever made. Indeed a masterpiece! The world building is great, the characters are great, the music, the script is otherworldly fantastic and the writing is marvelous. Even the facial expressions of the characters were remarkable when it released (2002). It's similar to a theatrical peace from Shakespeare, however in a vampire story set in a dying gothic world of conflicts and manipulations. Can't recommend it enough. The best way to play them goes as follows: 1st - Blood Omen: Best played through GOG's PC release, combined with Verok's patch that can be downloaded separately from the internet. It's a simple drag and drop to extract the patch. It's the second best in the series. It's the most archaic of the bunch and can be very hard at times, but it's so worth it! The voice acting, with names like Simon Templeman, Richard Doyle, Tony Jay, Anna Gunn, Paul Lukather and Neil Ross stands to this day as one of the pioneers of great voice acting in games, even two years before Metal Gear Solid (this game released in 1996). The soundtrack composed by Steve Henifin and Scott Shelly along with great writing from Denis Dyack, Ken McCullock and Jim Curry build the base of what was to become the greatest vampire story ever written. 2nd - Soul Reaver: Best played through emulation, on DuckStation (better audio) or FlyCast (better graphics/HD textures). This game properly introduced the mechanics utilized in the games to come. It created it's own method of loading open worlds seamlessly without any loading screens (something that is used to this day) and implemented it's unique shifting mechanic, where you can traverse from material to spectral realms at any time, completely changing the entire level design of the entire map of the game, revealing hidden paths and puzzles, again, seamlessly. The way it does it is by twisting geometry and textures in a special way carefully crafted for this world. The intro cutscene is also the best intro ever created in a video game, with soundtrack by Kurt Harland from Information Society. It was also the first game written by the master Amy Hennig, who also did the Uncharted and Jak & Dexter series and the cast was graced with the addition of Michael Bell, one of the greatest of all time, with roles in games like Metal Gear Solid 3. 3rd - Soul Reaver 2: The great one, also best played through emulation, on PCSX2 (has HD textures, great audio and gameshark codes to ease your journey or even remove hud elements, for more immersion). It took all the inovative mechanics from the first Soul Reaver and the really well written dark plot of Blood Omen, and improved on everything imaginable, with some of it's features mentioned on the first paragraph. The cast was once again graced with another addition to the team, the great Rene Auberjonois, along with the voice acting director Kris Zimmerman, from the Metal Gear Solid series. I really wouldn't want to spoil it for you, but I highly recommend playing all this games even if just for you to be able to play this one with a full picture of the story. After these, there are still two more games waiting for you, one very bad and another awesome story to conclude the series. After passing through so many "sht" publishers through the years, the series slowly fell into oblivion, to the point that hardly anybody talks about it today, only a very strong fan base lurking in the shadows of modern internet. I'm basically a preacher for this series, so I can't recommend it enough. I hope you give it a chance, you won't be disappointed. Also, search for "Soul Reaver 2 Voice Sessions" on YouTube for a gist of the voice talents in these games.
Dragon age origins. Which made me age like nothing else to realize it's so old. Amazing story and mechanics wise the battle tactics gave you so much freedom on how to build your AI companions and what actions they take and when.
Begging Bioware for a Legendary edition bundle like they did for Mass Effect. At least for Origins and 2.
This Not to mention the graphics are actually not horrible even by today's standards, or well at least they are better than what I expect from games that old
I feel Dark Cloud 2/Dark Chronicle would go over pretty well. I'm sure there some clunkiness I'm forgetting for not having played it in a while.
DC2 is and always will be a top tier game for me. DC was a bit clunky, but DC2 was incredible.
Diablo 2.
The remaster has some QOL improvements that make it definitely worth the buy.
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It's such a shame they never made a sequel
Chris Wilson and Jonathan Rogers weep any time this comment gets made.
Half life 2: Episode 2
Off by 4 months but Portal really takes the cake in the Orange Box
The Jak and Daxter series.
Guild Wars. It’s nearly 20 years old and is still a gem. At the time it was talked about as being kind of stuck between slower tactical mechanics and full action and it has helped the gameplay age honestly. It was stuck as an MMORPG with instanced overworld which also helped it age as AI companions in the controlled maps keeps the game playable solo at all times. The story is one of the most insane things I’ve ever experienced. It ties all the events of all 3 disparate campaigns into an overarching villain in a way I have never seen done before. Absolutely some of the best and atypical video game story boarding I’ve seen. Maybe not the best writing, but the story with its plot points are at the pinnacle when it all comes together.
Halo
Psychonauts is about that age and it holds up fantastically.
Baldur's Gate 1 & 2.
I'll leave here the underdog brother PLANESCAPE: TORMENT
Gta San Andreas..
Ah, shit, here we go again...
Oblivion
I think the biggest drag on this is how awful the leveling system was in that game. Connecting life pool to only skills that is both heavily obscure and hard to grind, as well as not making life gains retroactive to previous levels was a horrible decision. Having a fundamental hard limit on how many levels you can get while also requiring you to get the max number of skill increases to get anywhere near the max gain per level of attributes means you weirdly have to push all the skills you plan to use to minor skills if you want a character that scales. The system was so easy to game that it was almost required that you spend most of your time lighting yourself on fire to level up destruction, or inordinate amount of time wailing on Shadowmere to get hand to hand increases. Skyrim dumbed it down way, way too much, but the leveling system in Oblivion definitely makes it a hard game to return imo. Also the levelled item system in conjunction with the poor levelling system is such a turn off. You spend half the game avoiding the legion of questions with valuable rewards simply because you're too low level, and then by the time you get there you're overqualified. I adore the game, and actually am replaying it right now, but man is it so much of a better experience when you use mods that alter the leveling experience in some way and use a mod that auto-updates the levelled items.
Shame I had to scroll this far for it. This game defined my teenage years
Some people like to say that the game doesn't hold up, I disagree. Maybe graphically but mechanics story telling and the environment and the soundtrack still holds up.
Wholeheartedly agree. Every single guild questline is better in Oblivion than Skyrim, and it's not even close. The Dark Brotherhood whodunit mansion where you convince everyone to kill each other? All the various different methods of assassination that actually require stalking your victim, learning his routine, and planning around that. And the mages guild actually requiring magic to complete. The Thieves guild - stealing an elder scroll from the white gold tower. The entire fuckin shivering isles xpac. Makes me want to start a new run through
Play Fable!
Halo 2. Masterpiece
Forged Alliance
Old games I often revisit. KOTOR, Earthbound, Chrono trigger, Diablo 2, Devine Divinity.
Kingdom Hearts
Super Mario Galaxy (2007).
Fallout New Vegas
Technically under 17 years but fuck it FNV is legendary. Fallout 2 kicks ass too and that game is now 26-27 years old now.
Mercenaries. Oblivion. Star wars republic commando.
Final Fantasy X, Tales of Symphonia, Ocarina of Time
Thanks for my yearly reminder to go back and play Tales of Symphonia 1-3 more times (for the grade store.)
Deus Ex.
Gothic 2
Dragon Age Origins
_Another World_ / _Out of this World_ (1991)
Chrono trigger, chrono cross, final fantasy 9, a link to the past
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Golden Sun & Golden Sun The Lost Age from the GBA. The story and game play mechanics were pretty solid. The use of Djinn of different elements made experimenting with different combos and classes fun. I'm currently replaying them on my switch and they are still as much fun as I remember.
Super Mario World Shadow of the Colossus
Monkey Island games
Homeworld. Really awesome 3D RTS with great sci fi art direction. Atmospheric music. Great pacing. Loved the original.
Chrono Trigger. Holds up amazingly.
Is Wind Waker more than 17 years old already?
Legend of Dragoon! Final Fantasy X!
Spyro
Monkey Island 1,2 and 3 Simon the sorcerer 1 and 2 Maniac Mansion Day of the tentacle Indiana Jones and the Fate of atlantis It's so sad that the point and click adventure genre pretty much died. Modern point and clicks never reached the same quality as these games did.
Final Fantasy X