Favorite games

[Cor2]

in no order

Fallout 1& 2& tactics
Dominions 3
Alpha Centori
Incursion
Dwarven fortress
Civ 2&3
Victoria
Heros of might and magic 2&3
Masters of Orion 2
Might and Magic 6&7 (i don't know why)
Oblivion

[Saulot]

Endoperez said:
Why Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind? I tried both, but didn't like them. I'm actually giving my Morrowind cds away, because I'm just not interested. Would mods make a difference for NWN, or is it multiplayer only?

The NWN part of the question was answered. Though I'll rehash anyway, it's a mod game, and a MP game. It was certainly quite strong in both those areas, and enjoyable for some months, which puts it ahead of 98% of most games. Outside of that context however, I wouldn't waste going through the mediocre first act to get to the halfway decent following acts.

As for Morrowind, well it's a gem, but it has it's flaws, and it's also covered in some mud, that's for sure. It has three major flaws, and three major virtues. I'll begin with the former;

The storyline is not particularly exciting, in fact, I barely bothered with it, and a few friends who also played, felt the same way. This is mitigated seriously by the first virtue, that it's a game where you don't have to follow the story, or any path at all. This is a game of free-form exploration and adventure. While the combat system isn't great, it's enjoyable enough and I've experienced a few exciting and close fights. You're walking down a beach, and you find a familiar ship half destroyed, and sticking out of the water. Perhaps there's some treasure inside, and it's worth checking out. Much like it's predecessor, and it's follower, this is a large part of it's appeal. Exploration is interesting due to a world environment that has some serious time spent on it (despite some bugs) and in large part to the graphics and high quality music score. Which leads me to the second virtue, the Morrowind setting is quite interesting in and of itself, and has a certain atmosphere and life to it. The magic system is different from most others, and also extremely freeform, which leads me to the second flaw. The game is unfortunately too easy, due in large part to magic being far too powerful and expansive, and the alchemy and enchanting system which any analytical person or munchkin will soon crack to reach deific wealth and power. This problem is further aggravated by the level scaling of the monsters, which means you'll never face anything out of your league, even though that synergizes with the exploration / go where you please, aspect. The final flaw ties in with the first, and that is that the dialogue is not that great, but that's forgivable to a degree, when you consider the amount of npcs and the scope, as the game world can take several real life hours to cross just from one side of the other, if you feel like walking.

The last part, is to remove the mud from the gem, of which I mean, not a virtue of the game itself, but a virtue of the developers (who released powerful mod tools) and the player community and to take advantage of expansive and varied mods which can change/place a dozen things you thought should be in the game, and a dozen things you hadn't thought of. Morrowind had (and still has to some degree) a very robust modding community, and to ignore it is to ignore half the game.

While this is a game that is probably never coming back from the shelf onto my harddrive, it brought me a few months of enjoyment, and I think anyone else who enjoys the exploration subsect of RPG's would have similar enjoyment.

@PyroStock:
"Lords of the Realm 2 (I spit at 3)"
I have to heartily agree.
I found this extreme change and decline in terms of a sequel even worse than Moo3, or Fallout 3.

@Potatoman
"Pool of Radiance? Didn't that game auto-format your HD as part of a nasty, commonly-occuring bug? "
Heh, it was pretty bad that it came out like that. Though I'm pretty sure there was (eventually) a patch for that. I remember reading about the uninstaller for Myth 2 doing the same exact thing. Though, that didn't get shipped, they caught it and actually destroyed the entire printing of the cd's, and then remade it again. If I recall correctly, it cost them all the profits that game made. That highly ethical move, (and the game being very solid with a few 'edge of your seat' moments) did move to me to buy copies for 6 of my gamer friends.

Edit:
Thanks everyone, there's a few games here I've never heard of, and I'll be checking out. A few of those sound like they're out of print.

[Endoperez]

Saulot said:
As for Morrowind, well it's a gem, but it has it's flaws, and it's also covered in some mud, that's for sure. It has three major flaws, and three major virtues. I'll begin with the former SNIP

I tried MW with mods, but it still didn't catch. I also tried Daggerfall, but it didn't really catch either. I guess I need stronger goals to truly enjoy a game.

[Edratman]

I have to entirely agree with Saulot on Morrowind (and Oblivion). I thoroughly enjoyed playing both games, but when I stopped playing them I never even considered replaying them. They sneak into the bottom of my top 10 because of the former and stay at the bottom because of the latter.

[Aezeal]

I liked morrowind a lot, even the story really.. I played daggerfall too and tried it when every morrowind fan liked it even better than morrowind but really.. it's just not as good.

Oblivion.. I don't know why some pplz like it less than morrowind.. better graphics, better story. just a different setting, better mechanics too really.. also a great game

[Agema]

Mm.

In rough chronological order, a few of my favourites...

Lords Of Midnight & Doomdark's Revenge (Spectrum)
Rebelstar (Spectrum)
Elite (Spectrum/Amiga)
The Chaos Engine (Amiga)
Lure of the Temptress (Amiga)
Masters of Orion I (PC)
Deus Ex (PC)
Medieval: Total War (PC)
Morrowind (PC)
Counter-Strike Source (PC)

After a lifetime's gaming, it's a shame to miss out so much, although I could easily remove some and replace them with classics like Manic Miner, Speedball 2, Sabrewulf, Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars, Half-Life, Civilisation, UFO, Star Control 2, Eye of the beholder 2, and many more.

[Saarud]

Played alot of games since 25 years and in no particular order here are some of my favorites:

Dominions 3 (But ofcourse )
Civilization 1-4
UFO: Apocalypse
Jagged Alliance 2
Chaos Overlords
Medieval Lords
Empire
Stars!
Reach for the Stars (The OLD version)
Emperor of the Fading Suns (although it was very buggy MP games was extremely fun)
Victoria
Crusader Kings
Europa Universalis 1-3
Wastelands
Elite
Dwarf Fortress
Battlefield 2
Operation Flashpoint
SWAT 4
World War II Online
Star General
M.U.L.E.
Frantic Freddie
Lords of Conquest
Railroads West!
Deuteros
Imperialism 2
Colonization
Master of Magic
Reunion
Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri
Space Empire 4
Battles of Napoleon
Colonial Conquest
Advanced Tactics
Rise of the West
Swords of Aragon
Warlords 1 (and only 1)

[Potatoman]

Ah, I forgot Deus Ex. Definately one of the all-time great games, in my opinion. They don't make them like that anymore. It'd probably bump out X-Wing on my list.

I am rather surprised that at the lack of System Shock 2 in this thread's lists, though. It, too was great, and far better than Bioshock.

Mechwarrior 1, Star Control 2, Molez, V-Wing, Cyber Empires, Tyrian, Master of Magic, Jagged Alliance 2, and Counter Strike deserve honorable mentions.

[Endoperez]

Potatoman said:
Ah, I forgot Deus Ex. Definately one of the all-time great games, in my opinion. They don't make them like that anymore. It'd probably bump out X-Wing on my list.

I am rather surprised that at the lack of System Shock 2 in this thread's lists, though. It, too was great, and far better than Bioshock.

Mechwarrior 1, Star Control 2, Molez, V-Wing, Cyber Empires, Tyrian, Master of Magic, Jagged Alliance 2, and Counter Strike deserve honorable mentions.

SS2 was mentioned at least once. I've been thinking of playing it, but thought I'd have to play SS1 to enjoy it.

[Potatoman]

I've never played SS1, but loved SS2. It's almost impossible to get SS1 to run on modern computers, unfortunately. Plus, SS1 is a pseudo FPS that doesn't have mouse support, so it'd be very difficult to actually play these days.