Games that are so good they've ruined every other game in their genre for you

[Scarim Coral]

Supreme Commander
The RTS genre is dying because there is simply nothing to improve on after SupCom. Perfection has been achieved.

I guess this is what some apply to me althought it's 100% apply to my mate who is pretty much a SC fanboy (he compete online against other skilled players).

I mean sure I haven't played another RTS since SC but that doesn't mean I am not willing to played another RTS game. Example- I was intrigue by Grey Goo for its interesting story and faction and told my SC mate about it but he was not interested by it at all. He then proceed to tell me if I was really intro RTS, I should give SC a go again (I bought the game but not on Steam so I can't be bother buying it again on Steam) and sometime about SC is the only RTS worth playing (god he's such a SC elitist).

Ok to be fair, I do find it strange how no other RTS make used of the overworld map that SC did since I thought that mechanic of being able to fully ZOOM out of the entire map would of become maditory in future RTS games?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

When a single developer can consistently out-perform top AAA studios, you know they screwed up.

Couldn't it also mean that the single developer is unusually talented, and that working alone allows him to realize a singular vision that could otherwise be corrupted by committee?

 

[Tayh]

Jagged Alliance 2 Gold has ruined the squad-based, tactical, isometric, strategy, turn-based rpg(or SBISTBRPG) genre for me.
I'm still amazed how such an old game can have such varied nuances, details, interactivity and agency when so many modern games don't manage to be even half that.
Silent Storm came close, but was too short and railroaded. Same with Fallout: Tactics.
I haven't seen any othe game since then that could compare favourably to JA2.

 

[beyondbrainmatter]

Realtime Strategy: Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
Turn Based Strategy: Jagged Alliance 2 1.13
Western style RPG: Planescape Torment
JRPG: Romancing SaGa 3
Puzzle games: Magical Drop 3
Fighting Games: Capcom vs SNK 2

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

But for every mindless bit of hate there's also mindless fanboyism & love, so for me that balances out over almost 1400 people easy. I think 5.8 is a fair reflection of general, honest opinion.

Even I it's a tad lower due to hate, you're still looking at a 6 or 6.5 game at best. It's not terrible, it's just "meh". Whereas most reviews paint the game as "monumental". The difference between professional critical opinion and user opinion is huge. The polls as you point out show this too. I don't want hate for DA:I, I just wanted reviewers to be honest and say it's"meh", or at least be honest about it's flaws and not paint a dull, repetitive, filler-full world as amazing.

Each to their own, I just think it's getting a bit silly how far wide of the mark these reviews are getting so consistently now. There are posters on here I trust far more with their opinion.

You're still essentially bashing reviewers for having a different opinion than you. If you think it's a 5-6 game, that's fine, go ahead and think that, but to think that reviewers who think differently than you aren't being honest is just absurd.

At the end of the day, a review is just a personal opinion; what's meh to you might be great for someone else, or vice-versa. All these reviewers you think are being dishonest are actually giving their honest thoughts, so don't bash them for that.

You keep saying to each their own, I agree with that, but you yourself need to live up to your own words by accepting that for many people, Inquisition was a fantastic experience, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be.

 

[mysecondlife]

Witcher 3 certainly has increased my dislike for Skyrim. I don't think I'd ever play western RPG (mainly dominated by Bethesda and Bioware) again. I haven't finished the game but I'm confident that W3 has set the standard for fantasy western RPG. Now only if they fixed the crafting bugs...

EDIT: Also, I'm willing to give Guild Wars 2 a try. I haven't played it but I hear high praises about it. I'm already writing off all the others for having subscription fees.

Yea, after Skyrim I didn't think any WPRG would ever dethrone it. Then a little-known studio from Poland came out of nowhere...

As for Guild Wars 2, I have it and I've leveled to 80. My opinion of the game? Meh, at best. Maybe my experience was unique but the game didn't feel very social to me. As I leveled, other players rarely spoke to me, and I rarely even saw other players except in the big city hubs. By the time I hit 80, I felt like I had just completed the first ever single-player MMO. Of course, the "no subscriptions" thing is certainly nice...

Thanks for your input. But if you actually stuck around until lvl 80 it seems like the game's done something right.
Do you think the lack of social experience the game's fault or the community?

 

[veloper]

LOL! For some of you, that's a lot of very broad game genres you never to play anymore. Now you can just play a few old classics every once in while, leave the scene and get on with your lives. Yay!

Me, I get bored with even with the best games of a genre after a while, so even if a space 4X-game isn't MOO2, if it's good enough, it's still good enough to play, if only for a while.

 

[Skin]

I love how everyone is saying the Souls games have the best third person combat. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy it but it's so far from the best I'd argue to even call it great. Shoddy hit detection with a horrible lock on camera system. Then again it's not surprising to see people constantly fanwank that series to death.

Maybe the barrier to entry is difficult, not just game difficulty and all that, but being able to control your character and camera, etc takes a certain degree of skill which isn't easily picked up. The sheer depth of Dark Souls PvP is testament to that. The things that players can do with the system is absolutely incredible and it is hands down the best 3rd person combat game I have ever played.

For open world RPG's, Dragon's Dogma has kind of ruined the genre for me, which is strange because alot of DD is a mess and there are many things that are not outstanding. I guess being able to create your character AND companion, as well as the fun combat, decent challenge and some absolutely outstanding fights is enough of a mix to really blow out the competition. The story sucked though, but I don't often care about story. Witcher 3 has a better story, better world, but it's dull, repetitive combat and the fact I have to play as Geralt is why I don't rate it close to DD. Same with DA:I, which I actually thought was complete shit anyway. Skyrim was shit too.

 

[SadisticFire]

Fallout 2 so far has ruined every isometric RPG for me. Shadowrun:returns and Wasteland 2 fail to hold up to it. I tried them both and they both felt so empty. I do enjoy the feel of Shadowrun, though, but damn it's so.. linear. I was expecting open world, not a rail road.
Starcraft/Warcraft for RTS's. I haven't found any other RTS like it, for some reason base building isn't really a huge thing for markets. Dwarf Fortress(Though I can't even scratch a surface of that game) seems pretty close. Rimworld is really good, but not very deep. Fallout 3(and beyond)/The Elder Scrolls makes it hard for me to enjoy open world games. I tried Witcher 2, but the controls felt so clunky that i had to put it down. I might pick it up again, maybe not.
And not so much a game, but I had a good Trouble in Terrorist Town server a few years ago, but it disbanded. Can't find a new one for the life of me.

 

[G00N3R7883]

I was going to post this in the "What are you hoping for in Fallout 4" thread, but this place is much more appropriate. Like many of you have said already, Witcher 3, really made an impression. After playing that, it'll be a miracle if I ever touch a Bethesda game again.

I didn't think an open world WRPG could have such an engaging story. The side quests felt like actual quests, and the main quests were great enough to make the side quests seem unnecessary. I just wish they hadn't marked up the map with all those secret locations. I'd prefer to discover them on my own, rather than beeline from question mark to question mark. If anything, Bethesda still has better exploration because of that, but Witcher 3 showed me just how unconvincing Bethesda's NPCs were, and how poorly their stories were delivered, and how dull their combat was. To be honest, I already knew that. I just didn't know that it was possible to do it much much better in this particular genre. At this point, I doubt that any Bethesda game I'd want to play would even feel like a Bethesda game.

Witcher 3 is a good example for me too. I can remember posting in forum threads over the last couple of years that asked "what would be your dream game?". My answer was always "a Bioware quality story and characters, in a Bethesda style open world". I never actually thought it was possible, I thought the very nature of an open world would interfere with the pacing of the story. CD Projekt achieved it. Its not a perfect game, certainly I think a few more dialogue options and quest solutions would have been nice.

But now I'm going to compare every RPG I play to Witcher 3. Especially from the big developers. Mass Effect 4 needs to go open world, but have better side quests compared to Dragon Age Inquisition. Dragon Age 4 needs to add tactics back to its combat system and get better side quests. Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls 6 need more story depth and more interesting companions. Cyberpunk needs to improve on Witcher 3.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it has "ruined" the genre for me though. Whichever game I play, I always try to focus on what things that game does well, and not hate it for its flaws. For example, last year I played Bound By Flame and Demonicon. They were nowhere near as good as my favourites, but I still had some fun with them.

I guess it will also help that I won't be playing another RPG for a few months, so the epicness of Witcher 3 will fade from memory a little, and just take the edge off the comparison.

 

[Jake Martinez]

Let's see here.

MMO - Classic EverQuest. I just cannot get back that feeling of exploration and adventure before everything became instanced and all "secrets" were on spoiler sites. Alot of people take it for granted that within days of a new content release the players will now know everything there is to know about it, but "back in the day" we used to have fucking LEGENDS about stuff that we would whisper in hushed tones while camping Lower Guk and avoiding endless trains caused by bad monk pulling. I like WoW and everything, don't get me wrong, but there was no mystery in it and no sense of wonder for me. Maybe it's like how you can never forget your first love, I don't know.

ARPG - Diablo 2. So much fun, so many builds. So much god damn replayability. Diablo 3 is shit and I played it for 12 hours before never looking at it again. Hearthstone is a better game than Diablo 3 and that's kind of sad.

4X - Alpha Centauri. Unique Factions, Crazy Tech Tree, Interesting Events and Unit Design. Love, love, love this game. Better than Civ IV even and that's a close one. Honorable Mention: Master of Orion 2 and Galactic Civilizations 2. Space 4x is a small, but precious genre.

RPG - Baldurs Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. The best CRPG ever made, hands down. There are lots of RPGs and JRPG's that I love for various reasons, but BG 2 has everything that those other games does and it has it in spades. I laughed, I cried, I shouted bloody revenge.

RTS - Star Craft. Blizzard again here. Why is this game so fucking good? WHY??? It is easily one of the best designed RTS's I've ever seen. Easy to learn, hard to master, well balanced with lots of viable strategies. I guess there is a reason why so many people consider it basically the defining game of the genre, or the yardstick by which all other RTS's are measured against.

FPS - No One Lives Forever. I am not into "hard core tactical" FPS's or ultra realism. I was a huge fan of Duke Nukem 3D and played that game for years until I found NOLF and fell in love with Cate Archer. I'd say this is probably the first story based FPS I ever played and I can't think of a single one since then that's had me both simultaneously in stitches and on the edge of my seat. The fact that this game is now stuck in License Limbo because no one can figure out who owns it is fucking maddening. As far as I'm concerned Cate Archer needs to come back and show the "new" Laura Croft how to kick ass in go-go boots and a totally mod catsuit.

Stealth - Thief 2: The Metal Age. Part of the reason why I love this game is because the aesthetic is entirely out of Fritz Leibers "Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser". That sort of dystopian grim-dark fantasy world of low adventure and intrigue is just something that you can't find in most video games these days. The fact that not only did this game draw upon these incredibly inspirations, but also delivered amazing tension and action sequences really had me hooked. I consider this probably the finest stealth game ever made.


I guess most of the games on this list are from either the late 90's or early 2000's which sort of makes sense considering I'm almost 40. Also I wouldn't say that there haven't been games I've played since these that I've really loved, but these were my "firsts" that just blew my fucking mind or left a lasting impression on me that in some cases has endured for decades.

There are some hard calls on that list too, for instance I could go on and on in the RPG category about how much I loved Planescape or Fallout, or even older titles like The Bards Tale (god did I spend so many hours playing that game), so this wasn't easy to put together.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

You're still essentially bashing reviewers for having a different opinion than you. If you think it's a 5-6 game, that's fine, go ahead and think that, but to think that reviewers who think differently than you aren't being honest is just absurd.

At the end of the day, a review is just a personal opinion; what's meh to you might be great for someone else, or vice-versa. All these reviewers you think are being dishonest are actually giving their honest thoughts, so don't bash them for that.

You keep saying to each their own, I agree with that, but you yourself need to live up to your own words by accepting that for many people, Inquisition was a fantastic experience, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be.

I'm not. I'm bashing overall review trends for being miles out of sync with popular opinion, and promoting aspects of games which in reality the complete opposite is true (such as the "epic content filled world" etc.)

There's a big difference between "I don't like this game" to "The overall concensus of 1400 people is that this game isn't anywhere near as amazing as the supposed profesionals say, and certain aspects of what the reviewers claim are totally false".

You thought it was fantastic, fine. But if that makes 1401 people the overall opinion is that it wasn't. That opinion should carry weight, and reviewers should be held accountable for their out of touch perspective. Similarly, those who called it right deserve credit.

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

You're still essentially bashing reviewers for having a different opinion than you. If you think it's a 5-6 game, that's fine, go ahead and think that, but to think that reviewers who think differently than you aren't being honest is just absurd.

At the end of the day, a review is just a personal opinion; what's meh to you might be great for someone else, or vice-versa. All these reviewers you think are being dishonest are actually giving their honest thoughts, so don't bash them for that.

You keep saying to each their own, I agree with that, but you yourself need to live up to your own words by accepting that for many people, Inquisition was a fantastic experience, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be.

I'm not. I'm bashing overall review trends for being miles out of sync with popular opinion, and promoting aspects of games which in reality the complete opposite is true (such as the "epic content filled world" etc.)

There's a big difference between "I don't like this game" to "The overall concensus of 1400 people is that this game isn't anywhere near as amazing as the supposed profesionals say, and certain aspects of what the reviewers claim are totally false".

You thought it was fantastic, fine. But if that makes 1401 people the overall opinion is that it wasn't. That opinion should carry weight, and reviewers should be held accountable for their out of touch perspective. Similarly, those who called it right deserve credit.

You just proved my point once again.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

You're still essentially bashing reviewers for having a different opinion than you. If you think it's a 5-6 game, that's fine, go ahead and think that, but to think that reviewers who think differently than you aren't being honest is just absurd.

At the end of the day, a review is just a personal opinion; what's meh to you might be great for someone else, or vice-versa. All these reviewers you think are being dishonest are actually giving their honest thoughts, so don't bash them for that.

You keep saying to each their own, I agree with that, but you yourself need to live up to your own words by accepting that for many people, Inquisition was a fantastic experience, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be.

I'm not. I'm bashing overall review trends for being miles out of sync with popular opinion, and promoting aspects of games which in reality the complete opposite is true (such as the "epic content filled world" etc.)

There's a big difference between "I don't like this game" to "The overall concensus of 1400 people is that this game isn't anywhere near as amazing as the supposed profesionals say, and certain aspects of what the reviewers claim are totally false".

You thought it was fantastic, fine. But if that makes 1401 people the overall opinion is that it wasn't. That opinion should carry weight, and reviewers should be held accountable for their out of touch perspective. Similarly, those who called it right deserve credit.

You just proved my point once again.

You're clearly not grasping what I'm saying then, because my opinion doesn't even come into this. It's all about popular opinion Vs that of pro reviewers.

A pro score of 8.5 is miles off a user score of 5.8. There's something seriously wrong with that. Not everyone likes DA:I, but some folk did have a fantastic time with it. According to the pro sweep though, everyone should think it's fantastic. that's just outright factually wrong.

EDIT: Apologies, i was looking at a different review for the amount of people. It was actually 3342 opinions on the score, so an even wider range of opinions.

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

You're still essentially bashing reviewers for having a different opinion than you. If you think it's a 5-6 game, that's fine, go ahead and think that, but to think that reviewers who think differently than you aren't being honest is just absurd.

At the end of the day, a review is just a personal opinion; what's meh to you might be great for someone else, or vice-versa. All these reviewers you think are being dishonest are actually giving their honest thoughts, so don't bash them for that.

You keep saying to each their own, I agree with that, but you yourself need to live up to your own words by accepting that for many people, Inquisition was a fantastic experience, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be.

I'm not. I'm bashing overall review trends for being miles out of sync with popular opinion, and promoting aspects of games which in reality the complete opposite is true (such as the "epic content filled world" etc.)

There's a big difference between "I don't like this game" to "The overall concensus of 1400 people is that this game isn't anywhere near as amazing as the supposed profesionals say, and certain aspects of what the reviewers claim are totally false".

You thought it was fantastic, fine. But if that makes 1401 people the overall opinion is that it wasn't. That opinion should carry weight, and reviewers should be held accountable for their out of touch perspective. Similarly, those who called it right deserve credit.

You just proved my point once again.

You're clearly not grasping what I'm saying then, because my opinion doesn't even come into this. It's all about popular opinion Vs that of pro reviewers.

A pro score of 8.5 is miles off a user score of 5.8. There's something seriously wrong with that. Not everyone likes DA:I, but some folk did have a fantastic time with it. According to the pro sweep though, everyone should think it's fantastic. that's just outright factually wrong.

EDIT: Apologies, i was looking at a different review for the amount of people. It was actually 3342 opinions on the score, so an even wider range of opinions.

Here's the thing: professional reviewers often review the game well before the general public plays it, so they can only tell you what they think of it. They may assume that since they found it good, others would find it to be good too, which isn't that unreasonable.

User reviews will of course be a wide variety of opinions, but you shouldn't expect the pro reviewers to give the game a score based on the average of user reviews, since as I said above, they don't wait for user reviews before publishing their own.

Also, users will give a game moderate-low scores for different reasons; some review it bad because they encountered a few bugs, or sometimes they'll nitpick, the list goes on. Personally, I think people should be cautious when using reviews as a measure of whether to buy a game and should trust their own judgment more.

All I'm saying is that a review is a personal opinion, it is not meant to reflect general consensus.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

You're still essentially bashing reviewers for having a different opinion than you. If you think it's a 5-6 game, that's fine, go ahead and think that, but to think that reviewers who think differently than you aren't being honest is just absurd.

At the end of the day, a review is just a personal opinion; what's meh to you might be great for someone else, or vice-versa. All these reviewers you think are being dishonest are actually giving their honest thoughts, so don't bash them for that.

You keep saying to each their own, I agree with that, but you yourself need to live up to your own words by accepting that for many people, Inquisition was a fantastic experience, and the sooner you accept that, the better off you'll be.

I'm not. I'm bashing overall review trends for being miles out of sync with popular opinion, and promoting aspects of games which in reality the complete opposite is true (such as the "epic content filled world" etc.)

There's a big difference between "I don't like this game" to "The overall concensus of 1400 people is that this game isn't anywhere near as amazing as the supposed profesionals say, and certain aspects of what the reviewers claim are totally false".

You thought it was fantastic, fine. But if that makes 1401 people the overall opinion is that it wasn't. That opinion should carry weight, and reviewers should be held accountable for their out of touch perspective. Similarly, those who called it right deserve credit.

You just proved my point once again.

You're clearly not grasping what I'm saying then, because my opinion doesn't even come into this. It's all about popular opinion Vs that of pro reviewers.

A pro score of 8.5 is miles off a user score of 5.8. There's something seriously wrong with that. Not everyone likes DA:I, but some folk did have a fantastic time with it. According to the pro sweep though, everyone should think it's fantastic. that's just outright factually wrong.

EDIT: Apologies, i was looking at a different review for the amount of people. It was actually 3342 opinions on the score, so an even wider range of opinions.

Here's the thing: professional reviewers often review the game well before the general public plays it, so they can only tell you what they think of it. They may assume that since they found it good, others would find it to be good too, which isn't that unreasonable.

User reviews will of course be a wide variety of opinions, but you shouldn't expect the pro reviewers to give the game a score based on the average of user reviews, since as I said above, they don't wait for user reviews before publishing their own.

Also, users will give a game moderate-low scores for different reasons; some review it bad because they encountered a few bugs, or sometimes they'll nitpick, the list goes on. Personally, I think people should be cautious when using reviews as a measure of whether to buy a game and should trust their own judgment more.

All I'm saying is that a review is a personal opinion, it is not meant to reflect general consensus.

Which is fair. I'm just saying that there's too many poor reviewers as a whole, because the overall review opinion is flat out too different from user opinion.

If reviewers are having better/worse times with games than the average Joe, then they are in the wrong job, as the whole point of their opinion is to provide a guide for other likeminded people.

And flat out lies about "amazing/fun filled/enjoyable quest laden world" are inexcusable.

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

If reviewers are having better/worse times with games than the average Joe, then they are in the wrong job, as the whole point of their opinion is to provide a guide for other likeminded people.

And flat out lies about "amazing/fun filled/enjoyable quest laden world" are inexcusable.

If the opinion of the public doesn't match that of a reviewer, they aren't in the wrong job, the public just disagrees. A reviewer is supposed to give you THEIR evaluation of a work, it's doesn't have to be in line with anyone else's view. Players have to be careful when using a review as a guide, since guides aren't always fullproof or reliable. It's up to the player to use his own judgment.

Again, it's not lying to provide an opinion. If THEY found it amazing, fun-filled, enjoyable and quest laden, then of course they're going to tell you they found it that way, and of course they expect at least some other people to find it that way too. If YOU don't find it any of those things, then you and the reviewer just share different views.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

If reviewers are having better/worse times with games than the average Joe, then they are in the wrong job, as the whole point of their opinion is to provide a guide for other likeminded people.

And flat out lies about "amazing/fun filled/enjoyable quest laden world" are inexcusable.

If the opinion of the public doesn't match that of a reviewer, they aren't in the wrong job, the public just disagrees. A reviewer is supposed to give you THEIR evaluation of a work, it's doesn't have to be in line with anyone else's view. Players have to be careful when using a review as a guide, since guides aren't always fullproof or reliable. It's up to the player to use his own judgment.

Again, it's not lying to provide an opinion. If THEY found it amazing, fun-filled, enjoyable and quest laden, then of course they're going to tell you they found it that way, and of course they expect at least some other people to find it that way too. If YOU don't find it any of those things, then you and the reviewer just share different views.

But it's statistically impossible for so many reviewers to have enjoyed it so much when you reflect that against popular opinion.

If they genuinely did, which by lies such as "fun filled, content rich world" I doubt, they are clearly missing things everyday gamers haven't, thus showing they aren't as good at reviewing games from an accuracy perspective.

I rely on user opinions far more th as n reviews now. In bygone generations it wasn't the case.

 

[springheeljack]

I wont say ruin but these are the games that I compare others to

In terms of survival horror I would say Dark Corners of the Earth though it is such a close tie with The Suffering
Dark Corners of the Earth was a amazing game and it was often disturbing as hell I haven't played any other games that creeped me out on that level
In terms of Rpg it would have to be Morrowind I love that game the level of exploration, the rich history and lore, the truly alien world for you to explore it was amazing I have not played a game that Bethesda has never been able to put up anything close to it since
In terms of Open World/Sandbox it would have to be Red Dead Revolution because of how amazing that game was it still amazes me that Rockstar was able to accomplish what it did
First Person Shooter would probably be Halo but I just don't really play that genre a lot so that is mostly the reason
In terms of Visual Novel I would have to say Fate Stay Night the story was fantastic the characters were extremely deep and I loved playing it

 

[Evilsausage]

RTS: Company of Heroes

Realistic RTS: Men of war: Assault squad

Turn based fantasy: Heroes of might and magic

ARPG: Path of Exile. Used to think that about Diablo 2. But PoE is the king now.

Realistic FPS, Armed Assault 3.

FPS: Brutal DooM. Still the most fun game when you just wanna slaughter stuff.