Your personal top 3 games you have ever played.

[Kerg3927]

1) Warcraft 3 - I STILL go back ever couple of years and play through all the single player missions, and the game is now 14 years old. The story is excellent, with just the right amount of challenge on Hard, and it's the perfect mixture of RTS with RPG elements.

2) Mass Effect trilogy - I think of it as all one big game.

3) Wizardry 7

 

[Raddra]

Suikoden 2

Shining Force 2

Neverwinter Nights

Out of all the games I have played, these 3 stick with me the most. Tough choices.. honourable mentions go with Final Fantasy 7, Skyrim, City of Heroes, Everquest (classic), Grandia

 

[Hawki]

(Seriously, what does Earth actually add to Zanza's character that couldn't be accomodated for him being a god from the outset?)

For starters, it sort of reflects where Shulk is at towards the end. His world is dying (similar to Earth), and he is the only one left with a Monado, essentially giving him the power of a god. He's shown that he isn't the first to be in that position: Zanza had been given the opportunity to destroy Earth and recreate a new world to serve him as a god, similar to the decision Shulk has at the end. Meyneth, despite having been highly benevolent as a god, argued against such a decision and even tried to stop Zanza. Shulk basically is given the choice to follow Zanza's path or accomplish what Meyneth tried to do from the beginning: Leave everyone in a world without gods. Sure, he could go on to follow Meyneth as a benevolent god, but that wouldn't have been what she wanted.

There's also probably a lot of Nietzsche philosophy involved if you dissect the dialogue, but I'm not familiar enough to do that. Regardless, I found the ending to deal more with Shulk than Zanza. It also has quite a bit to do with Meyneth, and it is where we finally get answers to some of the questions regarding who Alvis is.

You're right about Nietzsche, but I'll get to that in a bit.

First of all, Shulk's world is dying (theoretically, aside from the telethia, we only really have Alvis's word on it, and it's likened more to stagnation than anything else), but how is that similar to Earth? Earth and its universe were destroyed by Klaus's curiosity/carelessness - there's nothing to suggest that it was in a bad state. My point is, if we cut out the Earth bit, Zanza would still be the same character with the same motivations. And it feels out of place because despite the presence of a lot of elements that feel more akin to our world or sci-fi (e.g. the telethia gene being outright referred to as a gene), Xenoblade is still obstensibly fantasy. Tying in to our world with real-world science (sort of) in the mix just feels like a twist for the sake of a twist. Why was it that only Klaus and Meyneth became gods? How did Alvis? What about the other people on the research station? How does one build a device capable of consuming an entire universe? In fantasy you can wave these questions away, in sci-fi, not so much. Klaus and Meyneth are at least closest to the activation trigger, and Alvis has the benefit of being an AI, but...yeah.

Making Zanza mortal once does allow for one thing that struck me in the end of the game, namely the question of whether Zanza really believes what he's spewing out, or if he feels compelled to? I ask because as I mentioned, Zanza just won't...stop...talking...(about being a god), but I did consider that maybe he's playing it up. He does express an emotion such as loneliness, which is a human trait, so when he's acting all high and mighty to the point of aggravation, is he playing a role? Or is he that far gone? But either way, even with Zanza being mortal once, you could have got away without dragging Earth into it.

Back to Nietzsche - there's something arguably Nietzsche about the situation, if one harkens to the phrase "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." That said, it's not a concept limited to Nietzsche - "killing god" isn't that uncommon in JRPGs (Final Fantasy VI and X come to mind), and it's a concept that probably has its roots more in Asian culture than Western philosophy. I've heard that Zanza and/or the scenario around him is based around a particular Asian philosophy or religion, but I forget the name for it. Granted, you can find analogues in Western games - Diablo, StarCraft, and Warcraft all deal with the idea of higher beings have to die/step aside so that mortals can come into their own. But even then, JRPGs remain the butt of the joke. Even Golden Sun, which doesn't end with you killing God, still involves a confrontation with Weyard's highest power, and a final battle that determines (in said god's eyes) that mankind has matured enough to have alchemy return to the world.

 

[mardocOz]

1. Persona 4 - The Golden

I fell in love with this game. Purchased a Vita just to play it. I don't know if it's the gameplay itself, the story, the music and presentation, or the characters themselves, but for me everything just gelled. Two playthroughs completed, on a third. For me, this is the best game ever. I have purchased the spin-off games (P4 Dancing All Night and the Arena games) because I want more story with these characters. Solving the mystery wasn't enough, I wanted more. And I still do. Roll on Persona 5...

2. The Legend of Zelda - Ocarina Of Time

Yeah, it's the boring choice. A Link to the Past is also right up there, as is Majora's Mask and A Link Between Worlds, but for me this game changed so much. I remember getting this for Christmas and being hooked for weeks, finally shedding a tear when it was all over because there wasn't any more to do. As I said Majora's Mask is awesome too, heck most of the Zelda games are, but this one stands out for me. Flawed by today's standards but stunning for the time.

3. World of Warcraft

I no longer play WoW. I fell out of love with WoW big time around the time of the Cataclysm launch, and haven't gone back. But the fact that I spent five years of my life playing this game should indicate how good this game is/was. It redefined what MMOs could be. Getting a server first raid boss kill was just about as exhilarating an experience as I can recall in gaming. Perhaps there are other games that could and should be in this spot, but I can't in good conscience ignore the fact that this game still, years after I stopped playing it, hold a special place in my gaming memories.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Xenogears for PS1.

Heroes of Might and Magic 2/3

Nuclear Throne

There are a lot of other awesome games that I might have included on this list if you asked my next week but those are definitely some of my favorite games of all time.

 

[LookingGlass]

I can't do three... but maybe I can do four.

In order of release:

- Deus Ex (2000)
- Silent Hill 2 (2001)
- Morrowind (2002)
- Dark Souls (2011)

Each of these games completely changed what I thought was possible in the world of video games. It's hard to rank within them as they're all so different.

There are a bunch of other games I love, but I don't think any others managed to completely consume me the way those did.

 

[PacDwell]

I was going to choose my personal top 3 according to the amount of time I've played them for...but I've spent loads of time on Skyrim - yet it doesn't rank as one of my favourites. Whilst the graphics in games of recent years are outstanding, I feel gameplay wise they leave a lot to be desired. It's almost like game designers have become lazy. All shine and no substance.

Dark Souls is popular because it has 'some' substance, but even that (given what's possible today) lacks depth. Many might say it's simply a 3d version of a 2d arcade game from the 80's (Kung Fu Master springs to mind).

Yeah, I'm of an age where I remember when game designers went the extra mile; they had to...given the limited resources available. Captive (Amiga) demonstrates this. The devs of Legend of Grimrock didn't think that good procedural level design was possible...until I pointed them in the direction of Captive (from the 80's)!

So onto my list:

- Head Over Heels (C64). Zzap magazine scored this game 98% and it was very accurate. A proper game the likes of we may never see again.

- Pirates! (Amiga). The C64 version was a tremendous feat. The Amiga version was a joy...still much better than the excellent remake years later.

- Baldur's Gate 2. The first Baldur's Gate did what many thought impossible by bringing tabletop D&D to the screen. The second one was a masterpiece...honed to near perfection. The newer Pillars and Divinity (whilst both excellent) don't capture the amazing depth.

 

[Silence]

1) Warcraft 3 - I STILL go back ever couple of years and play through all the single player missions, and the game is now 14 years old. The story is excellent, with just the right amount of challenge on Hard, and it's the perfect mixture of RTS with RPG elements.

Punch me, because I forgot this, even though it basically influenced ALL my teenage years.
I ... I have to include it into the top 3 ... I can't take anything out ... fuck.

But seriously, that is one good game I love.

 

[MeatMachine]

Team Fortress 2. Infuriating and dated, but nonetheless, 6,100 hours doesn't lie.

DOOM 2. Colorful, fast-paced, badass music and action, and hard as tits with some custom levels.

Fallout: New Vegas. The ONLY rpg where I ever felt that my character was truly my own - a maleable main character with a backstory that is retroactively told through my ongoing choices and actions, and a karma system that is more complex than a bland, 1-directional "good/evil" path.

Doom, System Shock 2 and Undertale. Easy.

Basically all tough contenders for my list as well.

 

[Skatalite]

Dark Souls is popular because it has 'some' substance, but even that (given what's possible today) lacks depth. Many might say it's simply a 3d version of a 2d arcade game from the 80's (Kung Fu Master springs to mind).

While there are many other clueless people out there, I still highly doubt that. That's gotta be one of the weirdest comparisons I've seen yet.

 

[pearcinator]

1. Zelda: Majora's Mask and Zelda: Ocarina of Time (yes I know it's a cop-out but I think they complement each other to make the perfect game together. If I had to pick just one it would be Majora's Mask).
2. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (wasn't expecting much, first Bioware game, blew my mind).
3. Mass Effect 2 (massive gameplay improvement over Mass Effect 1 and had excellent characters, Mass Effect 3 had better gameplay but...the story, man).

 

[PacDwell]

Dark Souls is popular because it has 'some' substance, but even that (given what's possible today) lacks depth. Many might say it's simply a 3d version of a 2d arcade game from the 80's (Kung Fu Master springs to mind).

While there are many other clueless people out there, I still highly doubt that. That's gotta be one of the weirdest comparisons I've seen yet.

You've never heard Dark Souls being touted as a 3d Castlevania or 3d Metrodvania? My age allows me to take it a bit further to a 3d Kung Fu Master.

Go through a level, learning enemies, learning their patterns and weaknesses. See a new enemy and get killed. Repeat the level and learn the new enemy. Get to the level boss and think "I've got no chance"... Do the level again against the same enemies and fight the boss again and do a bit better, until you eventually kill it and get to the next level.

You don't need to be clueless to work out where Dark Souls finds it roots.

 

[Hawki]

Dark Souls is popular because it has 'some' substance, but even that (given what's possible today) lacks depth. Many might say it's simply a 3d version of a 2d arcade game from the 80's (Kung Fu Master springs to mind).

While there are many other clueless people out there, I still highly doubt that. That's gotta be one of the weirdest comparisons I've seen yet.

You've never heard Dark Souls being touted as a 3d Castlevania or 3d Metrodvania? My age allows me to take it a bit further to a 3d Kung Fu Master.

Go through a level, learning enemies, learning their patterns and weaknesses. See a new enemy and get killed. Repeat the level and learn the new enemy. Get to the level boss and think "I've got no chance"... Do the level again against the same enemies and fight the boss again and do a bit better, until you eventually kill it and get to the next level.

You don't need to be clueless to work out where Dark Souls finds it roots.

My experience in this is mainly confined to Metroid, but that doesn't really sound like a Metroid game to me. In Metroid, bosses can be hard, but average enemies are usually pretty easy to handle. The challenge in Metroid comes from finding your way rather than the combat.

 

[pilouuuu]

1) Time Pilot: Arcade game. Pumped a gazillian quarters into this thing

Wow! Time Pilot is probably the first game I've ever played! It was in an arcade near home when I was a kid.

It's really hard picking up only 3, especially considering that tastes change over time, but I'll try. A few years ago I would mention Half-Life 2, Bioshock and Mass Effect, but this is my list these days:

1 - The Secret of Monkey Island

I used to play it every year. I love this game. It transports you to a different world, one with pirates, strange anachronisms and a different sense of humour. The dialogues are incredibly funny and few games gave the same sense of adventure and discovery.

2 - Rocket League

I hate soccer, so I was surprised to like this game so much. Soccer + cars is a winning and fun combination. The game is so incredibly simple and that's where its perfection lies. Addictive and fun, this game is destined to become a classic.

3 - Hearthstone

Another simple and addictive game that is fun to pick up and play. I never thought I would get into a multiplayer F2P cards game and it's one of the few games I constantly play nowadays with many more hours played than most other games. Few games bring a smile to my face nowadays like this one.

Honorable mentions: Portal 2, Undertale and Stardew Valley.

 

[Skatalite]

You've never heard Dark Souls being touted as a 3d Castlevania or 3d Metrodvania? My age allows me to take it a bit further to a 3d Kung Fu Master.

Sure, at times the Souls games remind me of Castlevania myself (although especially because of its style), but Kung Fu Master, at least from what I've seen, looks more like Streets of Rage. Definitely not something that'd come up when playing a Souls game.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Mass Effect 1 - I grew up thinking by the time I was 21 I'd be jetting through outtta space and saving the universe. When aged 21 I eventually found myself sat in a call centre getting abuse from frustrated fuckwits, I knew it would never happen. ME1 at least gave me that feeling & illusion for several hundred sweet hours.

Super Mario World - Just an amazingly crafted game, which somehow is so, so easy to pick up, yet introduces something new or secret every time you play. Still the game with the most "playability" ever IMO.

The Witcher 2 - The most replayed game I've ever had. So many choices, so many different POVs on events, so much depth and so much fun. I've not included TW3 as I've not had the chance to put anywhere near as many hours in yet.

Morrowind - an obscenely smart MQ (touching upon the malleability of history, possible redemption of self-made gods, religious doctrine and factionalism, and themes of fate versus happenstance), staggeringly detailed and imaginative lore, and a benchmark world to explore that I still find more beautiful and otherworldly than anything Bethesda have come up with since; Oblivion and Skyrim are painfully conventional compared to Vvardenfell's at times alien landscapes, rundown fishing villages, and imposing volcanic ravines with twisted daedric ruins that you could stumble upon just by cresting a verge.

Its MQ and sidequests organically explored Vvardenfell's culture, and - especially if you read the books along the way - one of the most richly envisioned worlds opened up, and kept unfurling as the hours rolled by.

Mechanically it hasn't aged well (mods can make it look rather gorgeous, though), but there's still a sense of magic and charm to Morrowind that's unique.

That's a superbly appropriate description of it *tipshat*

 

[MysticSlayer]

First of all, Shulk's world is dying (theoretically, aside from the telethia, we only really have Alvis's word on it, and it's likened more to stagnation than anything else), but how is that similar to Earth? Earth and its universe were destroyed by Klaus's curiosity/carelessness - there's nothing to suggest that it was in a bad state.

It's more to do with the way universe creation/destruction/recreation works in the universe. The destruction of Earth led to the creation of the world of Xenoblade Chronicles, and with it the gods Zanza and Meyneth. With the destruction of that world, Shulk is in a position to be the god of the new universe. The methods of destruction may be different, but the ultimate result is still basically the same: A new universe with a new god.

My point is, if we cut out the Earth bit, Zanza would still be the same character with the same motivations.

I agree. I don't think it was meant to build on Zanza's character much beyond an origin story for him and Meyneth. I'm saying that it is more for Shulk to understand the position he is in. It's already happened, and the history he knows and experiences he had resulted from it happening in the past. He has a lot more motivation to choose having no gods as opposed to becoming a benevolent god like Meyneth.

And it feels out of place because despite the presence of a lot of elements that feel more akin to our world or sci-fi (e.g. the telethia gene being outright referred to as a gene), Xenoblade is still obstensibly fantasy. Tying in to our world with real-world science (sort of) in the mix just feels like a twist for the sake of a twist.

Perhaps they could have set it so a world other than Earth was destroyed, but I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. It's not like fantasy is exclusive to completely fantasy worlds where Earth doesn't exist (as far as we know).

Why was it that only Klaus and Meyneth became gods? How did Alvis? What about the other people on the research station? How does one build a device capable of consuming an entire universe? In fantasy you can wave these questions away, in sci-fi, not so much. Klaus and Meyneth are at least closest to the activation trigger, and Alvis has the benefit of being an AI, but...yeah.

Well, like you said, Xenoblade Chronicles is, at its core, fantasy. Even most of the sci-fi elements are approached the same as one would approach magic. Giving lengthy technical detail was never a focus, and I don't see why they should have changed that for the end. If the rest of the game treats magic and technology as basically the same thing, why should the ending be different?

Making Zanza mortal once does allow for one thing that struck me in the end of the game, namely the question of whether Zanza really believes what he's spewing out, or if he feels compelled to? I ask because as I mentioned, Zanza just won't...stop...talking...(about being a god), but I did consider that maybe he's playing it up. He does express an emotion such as loneliness, which is a human trait, so when he's acting all high and mighty to the point of aggravation, is he playing a role? Or is he that far gone? But either way, even with Zanza being mortal once, you could have got away without dragging Earth into it.

I just thought that was a mark of the writing. Zanza's constant monologuing about why what he was doing was justified is really just his version of Shulk constantly moping at the beginning or Dunban repeating "We will seize our destiny" way too many times.

Back to Nietzsche - there's something arguably Nietzsche about the situation, if one harkens to the phrase "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." That said, it's not a concept limited to Nietzsche

It's been a while since I really followed anything from the writer of Xenoblade Chronicles, but I seem to remember him being particularly fond of Nietzsche. It's not that Nietzsche is the only one with that approach to deities, it's that the writer seemed to cite him more. It also helps that the Xenosaga games, which are spiritual predecessors, were named after writings of Nietzsche.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Spyro The Dragon
Mass Effect
Blood Dragon

 

[GrumbleGrump]

1.- Undertale
2.- Portal
3.- Portal 2

These are the games that made me actually feel glad I played them. They left me completely satisfied, which is something few other pieces of media can do.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

Oh man.. only 3? Well I'll do my best.

1. Mario Party 2
Not because it's the best Mario Party or because it did anything revolutionary, but because I spent hours and hours playing this game with my little sister when we were kids. I can't even begin to add up the amount of time we spent choosing from the mini-game tree or playing rolling around the game boards. I was always Mario and she picked Yoshi every time.

2. Gears of War 1
Gears basically defined my time with games during the xbox 360 years through highschool. My best friend and I played through it multiple times on the hardest difficulty and I got insanely good at the online multiplayer. There was just something about all that shotgun dancing and the satisfying nature of the more skill absed weapons like the longshot and torque bow that just really clicked with me. Absolutely loved that game.

3. Dark Souls 1/3
I'm saying both because I am deep into 3 and I am absolutely loving it, but I need to see if it has the staying power that DkS1 did for me. I've played through it so many times and watched countless lore videos and let's plays from ENB. I love the story, the combat, the art style, the music, everything. It's been my go-to game when I just want to play something since it originally came out, and it introduced me to a whole new way of approaching games and how to play them.

Honorable Mention: The Witcher 3. While the games I chose were sort of life-style games that I played pretty regularly and were emblematic of my tastes at the time, I have to mention the Witcher 3 just for being an absolutely amazing game that I loved. It gave me a story and world that is gripping and authentic and I loved every minute of the base game and the first expansion.