Caltrops - Gamerasutra





	[quote name="Fullofkittens"]Rather than organize these into an ordinal top ten that pits the games against each other, I have - like John Cusack's character in <i>High Fidelity</i> - arranged these in biographical order: <u><b>Elementary School (circa 1986-1988)</b></u> These were all games that I played with my buddy and/or my father in my basement for, I dunno, conservatively 10 jillion hours. Pretty much every minute of 4th and 5th grade that I wasn't in school or playing our shitty 2-person AD&D campaigns: <b>Tales Of The Unknown Episode 1: The Bard's Tale</b> --- <a href="http://caltrops.com/pointy.php?action=viewPost&pid=94682">As detailed elsewhere,</a> my memory of this game may be unfairly rosy. But we considered ourselves total Bard's Tale operators and I think we even did get around to beating it. <b>Ultima IV</b> --- This one, I just played with my buddy. We got a long ways into this one. It's insane how deep and epic these games were, considering the graphics. We played it for, jesus, at least a year. I still remember the high fives when we figured out how to harvest mandrake root. MEMORIES <b>Autoduel</b> ---I swear that a correctly done Twisted Metal MMORPG would be the awesomest game ever and it could easily be done now. <u><b>Junior High (circa 1989-1992)</b></u> <b>Doom</b> ---My dad and I played this and its sequel non stop for 2 years. I still don't think anything has topped that gaming experience. <b>Tetris</b> ---Although my whole family played this (and my sister was the acknowledged queen of playing it), this is on here not because of the bonding that occurred but because of the mental state that the game puts you in. The only other game that was ever as effective at putting me into a happy hypnotic state was F-Zero. <u><b>High School and College (circa 1992-2000)</b></u> I didn't play any good video games during this period. =\| <u><b>Grad School (circa 2000-2001)</b></u> <b>Sacrifice</b> ---I don't know what it is about this game, but I just couldn't put it down for like 9 months. Except that isn't true; I know exactly why. The appeal of Sacrifice is that once you get the upper hand you get to feel like a Magical USA conquering a Magical Iraq except without the quagmire afterward. You just walk around kicking ass and deforming the landscape with your incredible power. <u><b>The Working Schmuck Years (circa 2001-present)</b></u> <b>God of War</b> ---Undeniably a great game, and short. The length was seen as a liability at the time; now I consider it GoW's greatest strength. About once a year I get some kind of flu or something and am stuck on the couch for two days. This is usually the only opportunity I get to play video games before 11pm at night. GoW can easily be beaten in 2 days. <b>Master of Orion 2</b> ---Yes, this game was very old at this point. But at one point I had to sit by a hospital bed every night for several months and it is the perfect game for that scenario. It's self-pausing! A nurse comes in, you clap the laptop shut and start talking. I also tried Civ 3 for this purpose, but that game sucks shit. <b>Devil May Cry 3</b> ---Gotten due to recommendations on this forum. I stayed up until 2am playing this thing some unholy number of times, leveling up my guy. The first stage never gets old! I'm thinking some time I might go get the version with Bloody Palace just because I like leveling up. <b>God Hand</b> ---Also gotten due to recommendations here. Great game. Maybe the only longish game I've played through to its conclusion on a console since Junior High. <u><b>Honorary Mention</b></u> <b>Beyond Good And Evil</b> ---Maybe the most enjoyable 2 days of gameplay I've ever spent. It can't be a top ten member, though, because it's really REALLY short and not at all replayable. P.S. Thanks to ICJ for nicely making his top FoK songs list. I was blushing too much to post in that thread. 8\| [/quote]