What are your top five (or 10) games of all time?

Icewind Dale is one of my all-time favourite RPGs. I think this one has the most immersive atmosphere of any isometric RPG I’ve ever played; those icy winters and those calm wooded sanctuaries. I think they have a kind of HD updated version of this on GOG I’ve been meaning to play (or perhaps it was a community patch?). I must play the sequel, never got around to it. I loved the straight-up party customisation too, no messing about. Looking forward to playing Pillars of Eternity over the holiday season, it’s high on my list. Have you tried it?

Thief is an incredible game. Everything Looking Glass Studios did was fantastic (except perhaps Flight Unlimited lol. It’s really sad that the company hit the dust, it was such a tragedy. I heard a really good podcast/interview about it and listened to the insider story of the actual downfall, what really happened, definitely worth a list, this interview is a real hidden gem, hardly any views but very fascinating: ( https://youtu.be/H640g_sX8pQ ). This almost made it to my list, but System Shock 2 managed to steal the spot just by a hair. I know the new “Thief” was a stinker but I picked it up on steam for $2, I’m interested to see how it plays. I mean, I played the new “Tomb Raider” game recently, it didn’t blow my socks off but I enjoyed it.

I’m very new to the Silent Hill series, I only recently discovered/played SH2. It was wonderful. I expected it to be rubbish, but it was wonderful. Right now I’m half-way through Silent Hill 3, about to actually fire up the PS3 and try n polish it off tonight. Great games, very surreal, weird. I’m surprised I only found these games now. I’m intrigued as to whether SH1 is worth investigating, haven’t looked into it.

Edit: It’s a sad note that System Shock 2 bombed, it was an absolutely incredible game but I think it was way before its time. Even today many/most horror games are still borrowing ideas from it. It’s a forgotten classic that started it all.

Yup, exactly. Can’t really add more to what you’ve said right there. When I was playing it, I thought “wow, this game is amazing!” I couldn’t put it down. I thought “this is an incredible masterpiece.” And I was nearing the end of the game, was ready to pack up and move on to the next game and then BAM, the upside-down business? I seriously had a seizure and rolling around on the floor for 20 minutes, breaking furniture with delirious delight and disbelief. What a game.

I’ve shamefully only really dipped my toes into the Final Fantasy/Harvest Moon games, let alone Megaman. I’ve been thinking about playing a Harvest Moon game recently, would be nice to play a chill game for once, been playing too much spooky and/or intensely hardcore rogue game recently.

Thanks for contributing: @Westane & @Darkshowers , it’s giving me a lot of ideas for games to play when I have some down time. There’s obviously many really incredible games out there that I haven’t even heard of or barely explored. Always good to broaden the horizons.

Well since everyone else has done a Top 10 list, I guess I feel the need to extend my list beyond the traditional top 5:

  1. Riven - Riven still gets #1 & I think it probably always will for me. In my opinion it is simply perfection.
  2. Dwarf Fortress
  3. STALKER: Call of Pripyat (with community mods+patches)
  4. Demons Souls
  5. System Shock 2
  6. ICO (PS3 HD version)
  7. Thief: The Dark Project (Thief GOLD)
  8. Deadly Premonition
  9. X-COM: UFO Defense (1994)
  10. The Longest Journey (1999)

Games that almost made the cut:

  • Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead
  • Miasmata
  • Omikron: The Nomad Soul
  • Arcanum
  • MDK
  • Dead Space 2
  • Silent Hill 2

Strangely: I decided to try to classify my preferred gaming genre and created a pie chart ( http://i58.tinypic.com/2150pc4.png ). I’m surprised, it seems like quite a mixture, though some of these games are hard to classify. It looks like “RPG/Exploration” wins overall with “Adventure/Puzzle” coming in second. Although I probably should have weighted them also depending on their ranking. Food for thought though. I wonder if everyone has a eclectic range of taste Apologies for obsessive self-absorbed analysis.

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I’m sure Pillars of Eternity is a great game. However, before I get to that one, I would prefer to play Planescape Torment and Baldur’s Gate 2 first as I am pretty sure they are better games.

I am playing System Shock 2 right now and I’m a few hours from finishing it. It’s a great sci-fi horror game that was ahead of it’s time and really underappreciated. It paved the way for the ever so popular Bioshock games and Dead Space. It’s pretty close but I am pretty sure I prefer Thief for the amazing level design, atmosphere, lore and revolutionary stealth mechanics. I have to play Thief 2 soon.

I finished Silent Hill 1-3 years ago and you really can’t go wrong with any of those games. Silent Hill 2 was a masterpiece and 3 was still a great game. Silent Hill the first game might be tough to go back to as PS1 graphics show their age much more than other older games but if you can get past the graphics, I place 1 right below 2.

Yeah I’m getting pumped up to play Pillars some time soon, but I haven’t tried it yet. It looks so amazing, love that classic style. Planescape Torment was a big part of my childhood, it’s a HUGE game with such a deep intense story and lore. Get your reading glasses ready, lol, the game contain’s 800,000 words of dialogue, that’s like… 1600 pages of dialogue. Playing Torment is seriously akin to reading all three books of the LotR Trilogy… twice. Hahaa! Definitely worth it though, still there’s no game like it, it’s a masterpiece. Lots of branching paths too; I only played it once through but I probably saw only a quarter of the content.
EDIT: I never play Baldur’s Gate 2. I wanted to carry-over my beloved characters from BG1, but I was never able to finish it. Srsly, toward the end, those enemies in BG1 so overpowered, I tried everything, got owned every time. Never finished BG1 (came so close tho!) so I didn’t want to continue the adventure without my original party. :(((

Warms my heart to hear someone playing this forgotten gem. It’s incredible and has definitely stood the test of time. I replayed it 2 years ago and gosh, I loved every moment of it. Did you mod it up a bit? There’s some really good graphical enhancement mods that make it look a bit more modern (plus resolution upgrade) without changing the style or gameplay. SS2 really started everything. I flip/flop between which I prefer (Thief/SS2) they’re both incredible masterpieces. Usually though I lean toward SS2 as the later levels in Thief get a little silly with all the monsters and caves and stuff. I prefer the level designs like the Thieves Guildy thing and Bafford’s Mansion and the Hammerites factories and stuff… I wasn’t a fan of fighting spiders and tree-monsters and stuff in caves, but the spooky ghost level was epic. Thief 2 perfected the formula but I can hardly remember, I haven’t replayed those games since I was a teenager.

Well very soon on my list I’m going to attempt to play the original Alone in the Dark(1992) which I haven’t played in decades, so maybe I will try out Silent Hill 1. By comparison Silent Hill 1 will be a graphical wonder lol. Question though, does Silent Hill 1 still retain that dream-like surreal almost David Lynch sensation as in SH2? That was my highlight of SH2, that atmosphere… so haunting and surreal and beautifully spooky: “In my restless dreams, I see that town… Silent Hill. You promised you’d take me there again some day… but you never did. Well, I’m alone there now in our special place… waiting for you.”
Ohh god, reading that quote sends intense shivers down my spine!!! What a game!

Some favorites (in no particular order, but spanning console generations), but the list could be much much longer…

  • Super Mario World (SNES)
  • Xenogears (PS1)
  • Shenmue (Dreamcast)
  • Paper Mario (N64)
  • Last of Us Remastered (PS4)
  • Baldurs Gate 2: Shadows of Amm + Throne of Baal
  • Planscape Tourment
  • Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri + Alien Crossfire
  • Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
  • Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings + the Conquerors
  • The Elderscrolls 3: Morrowind
  • Hereos of Might and Magic 3: Restoration of Erathia + Armageddons Blade
  • Jagged Aliance 2
  • System Shock 2

i love well written games

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[quote=“Begbie, post:26, topic:642”]
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
[/quote]I had a lot of fun playing this game. Sadly I haven’t played any of the other games you listed.

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1.The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
2.The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
3.Bioshock: Infinite
4.The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
5.Final Fantasy X
6.Fallout 4
7.The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
8.Assassin’s Creed: Unity
9.Silent Hill: Origins
10.Super Smash bros 4

Yikes, this is going to be tough. I am going to try my hand at this but I think a top ten list (five is far too difficult) is an ever evolving thing and I might completely change my mind even seconds after posting. Note that this is not a ranked list.










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I finished Silent Hill 1-3 years ago and you really can’t go wrong with any of those games. Silent Hill 2 was a masterpiece and 3 was still a great game. Silent Hill the first game might be tough to go back to as PS1 graphics show their age much more than other older games but if you can get past the graphics, I place 1 right below 2.

Silent Hill is still lots of fun to play. Personally the only thing that I find hard to cope with in Silent Hill is the control scheme/fixed camera. More than aging graphics, it is the control (or lack thereof) that you have over the character and camera which can drive you slightly nuts.

@bmo Year Walk has been on my wish list for awhile. I take it it’s good? It barely ever goes on sale on Steam. I definitely want to pick it up.

@8bithero It is aesthetically gorgeous and has a very moving story. The game also contains some unconventional mechanics (especially regarding narrative closure) that I really enjoyed. Year Walk is short an sweet but a game I return to at least once every year to re-experience.

Then it’s settled I will get it. Maybe I can sell some cards to reduce the price a little bit…

Ok, so in no particular order:

a) Metal Gear Solid (especially 1 & 3)

b) Tekken 3 (only really good played against humans IMO)

c) Fear effect

d) Mass Effect 3 with Leviathan DLC

e) FTL: faster than light

f) Spore

g) Dune II (the precursor to command&conquer)

h) Tomb raider 2013

i) FFVII - liked the story, the music, and the general atmosphere with pleasing graphics. Never really enjoyed the following FF’s except for IX and VIII (just a bit)

j) Rock of Ages (I’m biased as I did some voices for this one)

Honourable mentions: Zeno Clash, Farenheit, Shadowrun, Valkyria Chronicles, GTA: San Andreas, Tribes, Bushido Blade

Games that everyone loves that I didn’t care for much at all: GTA V, Skyrim, Doom

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please please do yourselve a favour and play at least 5 titles of these, you miss some great stories if u dont

i am close to complete icewind dale and addons. I had no idea, that it is so good. The hole atmosphere of a forgotten land, where you nearly meet anybody really impressed me. Its not as good as Baldurs gate 2 but no game is as good as baldurs gate 2. Icewind dale its the perfect game, when you have one meter snow in front of your door, like me right now :wink:

I should play Icewind Dale 2. I played the first one but never did the second.
In Australia we don’t get snow, so I remember this really atmospheric cosy feeling when I played it. Though I think there’s a strange beautiful cosy feeling whenever I play old Black Isle games. Somehow they really capture this atmosphere, plus with all the reading, a lot of the game takes place inside the imagination, making the visuals more impressive than a modern AAA game in some sense. Also because they’re so lengthy and you spend so much time wandering around, searching fog of war, turn-based battles: you kinda enter this euphoric zen state. Or maybe it’s just me. :sweat_smile:

After playing Pillars of Eternity I need to play more of these. I think I want to play Torment; I played it once more than ten years ago but I think I was too young to fully appreciate it. Shame they haven’t done a HD update.

Also: I love most of the games on your list. I’ve never played Morrowind (my computer sucked at the time, it wouldn’t run ) so I’m playing it for the first time at the moment. :heart_eyes_cat:

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cool, you started morrowind, maybe the most athmospheric game i ever played, only flaw is, that its very hard to get into. You start somewhere and you can go everywhere and everything can kill you and everyone wants something from you. Thats the big strenght and the big weakness in Morrowind. Let me know, how your progress goes on. Black isle games exspecially Torment teached me proper english (at least, thats what i hope) because you have to read, to dive into this world. Baldurs Gate 2 and Torment gave me incredible experiences, that only a handfull of books and movies mangaged to do. I can completly understand what you mean with Zen-feeling. When you play morrowind, dont be a racist and free all Khajiits and Argonian!:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I admit I’m struggling with Morrowind, it definitely doesn’t hold your hand like later open world RPGs. It’s quite daunting actually, there’s so much stuff. Even just the spell system is making my head explode. And hilarious pterodactyl things appearing in the sky and attacking me everywhere, hilarious. I’m having a ball, though I can tell it’s going to take me many months to get through it.
Those Black Isle games, almost like an interactive novel except with complex gameplay and a lot of interactivity/branching paths. Of all the games I’ve played in my life, I think they give me the most nostalgia tingles of them all. When I think of Candlekeep I get goosebumps. Oozing with atmosphere. I remember enjoying Torment but when I finally beat it I got a really bad ending, lol, the narrator was like “this character, that character and all these characters died because of you. and then soon after the apocalypse occurred because you failed to complete your central objective.” I’ve been meaning to go back and redeem myself for 15 years.
I won’t be racist! :wink: You might remember from my Pillars review how much I love cats; the Khajit are like my kin. I usually play Argonian/Khajit, they’re cool. In Skyrim I had a gay Argonian wedding! (I’m straight btw, but I felt it was necessary).
Have you ever played Redguard? It’s a peculiar Elder Scrolls games but it’s really good, a weird swashbuckling pirate adventure. I wish someone would fix it so it’s optimised for modern systems, I’m itching to replay it.

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Mine would be:

  1. Super Mario World
  2. Minecraft
  3. World of Warcraft
  4. Skyrim
  5. Vietcong