From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
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I feel like these conversations get dominated by games with the fewest explicit flaws rather than the ones that have the most to offer but it's my firm belief that no piece of art can be truly great which is not also kind of annoying. Not because annoyingness is inherent to greatness but because greatness and annoyingness are both the products of an underlying willingness to take creative risks.
So in that spirit, my answer is Steambot Chronicles.
Best game of all time. I play it every year.
I've never heard of it. What makes it so great in your opinion?
Nobody's ever heard of it; I've been singing its praises since 2006, and I've never met another person in real life who's heard of it. It's an amazing game set in a slightly-steampunk world where cars have only recently been invented, but giant steam-powered mechs were invented around the same time as well. The story's interesting, but the real fun comes from how much freedom the game gives in how you want to play it:
You can customize your character's clothes, you can be a good guy, you can be a jerk who charges his friends for every little favor, you can just straight-up be a villain, you can hustle pool, you can play in a band with a bunch of different instruments, each with their own mini game associated with playing them, you can extort or save an orphanage, you can buy and decorate an apartment, then play a dating sim with some of the characters, and that's all before you factor in the giant mech, which you can customize with a bunch of different pieces and use to fight in a colosseum, explore ruins for treasure, excavate fossils to save a museum, fight giant bosses, transport goods and passengers, and even turn it into an airplane to fly around in.
And that's all in a PS2 game! Sure, all of the features are limited by both the hardware and the inclusion of so many other features, but they're all fun, and the graphics look great. I rarely play any game more than once, and I've played this game well over a dozen times. It's helped by the different endings depending on how you play your character, but even the parts that are the same between playthroughs are still fun every time. It's my favorite game of all time by a huge margin.
That does sound very interesting. I will definitely check it out. Thanks for writing this lengthy reply!
Trog.. I played that game for days
It just occurred to me that Death Really (1995) would deserve to be talked about as well, it's just an incredible little game.
Freespace 1 & 2 deserve a mention here. Old games, so smaller in scope than modern games. But I feel they can compete still.
Plants vs Zombies on PC.
Great, unique, iconic, still fun to play. Its biggest achievement: I have brought a lot of people into the hobby by making them play this as their first video game and there wasn't a single one not having fun. Tower defense is as a whole an underrated genre if we talk about the best games of all time. It also is a game that offers achievements that add a lot to the gameplay by challenging you to change your tactics.
They of course had to make the second one mobile only and on top ruin it with microtransactions. :( Greed is why we can't have nice things.
MS Solitaire, Space Pinball, and Minesweeper come to mind. They were not my favorites, but I know a few people who have a few hundred hours on one or more of those.
For me it's C&C Generals Zero Hour. I have had a copy since it released in 2003, it still works, and I still play it in single player mode at least once a week. It's great because it does not require a huge time commitment and campaign missions take about an hour or less to complete. To me it's one of the best RTS style games out there. My second favorite? C&C Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge.
I have also very much enjoyed the Assassin's Creed series up to AC Odyssey.
Adding my Voice for Zero Hour. Excellent game. the multiplayer, skirmish and campaign modes all have something to offer.
It's crying out for a proper remake. Just a modern patch. Don't change anything, just make it work easier, especially the networking
I'm assuming you are already familiar with GenPatcher?
Seconding the other response. This page should have everything you need to get the game into an optimal, playable state. Like a breath of fresh air when I launched it again. Brilliant work by those involved in the fixes.
Pirate Trainer & Uru: Ages Beyond Myst
I remember trying Pirate Trainer in a Nvidia game booth when VR was new. It was incredible, years later I get a VR headset and its the free game. I don't understand how no one has improved upon it.
Uru was the first puzzle game I thought struck a good balance between physical and mental puzzles. They were set at a level that felt challenging but not impossible and laid out so you alternated really nicely. Myst Online actually went backwards in this
I tried pirate trainer in a VR demo booth at a con and lost 2 hours thinking it has been 20 minutes!
IMO, it's hard to claim best game of all time unless it ages well, and not just some unique gimmick the game provided at the time.
Ie, I don't like Tetris but for sure it is one of the best game of all time.
However, if what you mean is good games that somewhat get outshined by others or lacks media attentions, then I agree. There are plenty of other games, and I think people would have bias toward their favorite genre/type.