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Right off the start, YMMV in regards to what a classic might be. So what games of ye days gone by do you still enjoy immensely?

My top classics are:

Half-Life: The graphics are horrible compared to what we have today (it uses the Quake 2 engine) but HL is still near and dear to me because of well, everything. It's a cinematic game with great locales, memorable enemies and a great story to pull you through.

Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge: RA1 was an unbalanced mess that had its moments and RA3 is a horrible over-hyped, over the top mess of failure. RA2 is the perfect middle ground. It had the cheesy cinematics that weren't as serious as 1 nor as stupid as 3, the missions were fun and could take some time to get through, the units were zany but not as over the top as the third game and especially with the expansion, it has spades and buckets full of campy and memorable moments, such as the Soviet assault on a moon base, the Allied liberation of Hollywood where three movie stars help out and tonnes of other things really.

Close Combat 2: One of the few "realistic" strategy games that I keep on playing, mainly because the fighting takes place in my own country but also because of everything around it, with tonnes of historical stuff meshed in to make it as immersive as possible. The combat was a bit wonky at times (a Sherman blowing up a Tiger II from long range hitting the front) but other than that it still is one of the best strategy games in my collection.

Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge are some of the best for sure. The Hollywood mission was hilarious; I loved razing the entire map with Arnie Frankenfurter. His voice acting was pure win.

Hmm, what else... Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is great. I'm playing through it now on an emulator. Much, much easier to control than the N64 version with its hugeass controller.

Advance Wars 1+2 is really fun. The AI is utterly ruthless and can seemingly plan several turns ahead. The wide variety of COs means that multiplayer is never boring. Sturm was just obscenely powerful though. fething meteor strike. And the music. Oh, that music was great.

Emperor: Battle for Dune. Made in 2001, it was the last Dune game created. But oh boy, Westwood knew how to finish off the franchise. Excellent music, as we've come to expect from the sound department, fairly realistic combat (machineguns really, really suck against tanks and infantry are far from durable), and fun units. Ah, how I long for the days of Sardaukar spam.

I am able to run WH40K Chaos Gate under Vista which I can't on XP. I think see if Final Liberation will work.

Metal Slug 2.

The best game in the series.

F Zero was awesome, as was FZeroX.
Also Lost Vikings on the SNES.

GoldenEye and Perfect Dark were great ones to play with friends. Perfect Dark was one of the first games i'd played that used bots, especially with such variety. And weapons like the farsight and the laptop gun are not easily forgotten. You really needed the expansion pack though, because co-op campaigning was the most awesome thing imaginable.

Final Fantasy Tactics - really nothing much needed to be said.

Civilization - pretty much any of them will suck you in and having you playing hours on end. It's amazing how easily "Just one more turn..." becomes "Oh my god, it's morning...."

Fallout 2 - fantastic story line, great easter eggs, and sooo many things you can do differently to affect the ending.

Lords of the Realm 2 - a fairly over-looked TBS game from about 12-13 years ago. Sort of a mix between Heroes of Might and Magic and Warcraft 1.

Jin wrote:Final Fantasy Tactics - really nothing much needed to be said.

Civilization - pretty much any of them will suck you in and having you playing hours on end. It's amazing how easily "Just one more turn..." becomes "Oh my god, it's morning...."

Fallout 2 - fantastic story line, great easter eggs, and sooo many things you can do differently to affect the ending.

Lords of the Realm 2 - a fairly over-looked TBS game from about 12-13 years ago. Sort of a mix between Heroes of Might and Magic and Warcraft 1.

YEAH!!! I second all of these!!! Great list!

@ Jin I've just spent the last couple of weeks on Civ 2 Hot seating with my brother, and I totally agree with you.

Mario Kart 64.
Super Mario 64.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 on the DC

Ridcully wrote:GoldenEye and Perfect Dark were great ones to play with friends. Perfect Dark was one of the first games i'd played that used bots, especially with such variety. And weapons like the farsight and the laptop gun are not easily forgotten. You really needed the expansion pack though, because co-op campaigning was the most awesome thing imaginable.

These are unplayable for me today.

They haven't aged well and the control scheme is entirely far too awkward compared to what we've gotten used to over the years.

They were great fun while they were new though, especially perfect dark which I think had the better multiplayer.

I've been playing Toejam and Earl on the Megadrive the past few days, still as great as it always was, probably better than the sequel of the xbox if I'm honest.

Road Rash 2 as well, a brilliant game, still hope that it gets a decent update one day.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:Road Rash 2 as well, a brilliant game, still hope that it gets a decent update one day.

Holy crap! Where did you get Road Rash from? I haven't played that one in over 15 years....

Road Rash

Dibs on the Kamakazi bike with the chain!

If I could only have one game for the rest of my life it would be:

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4: Turtles in time on the SNES, whenever I see my brothers we end up playing.

The original Legend of Zelda: I've played that on my Wii more than any Wii games.

The Quest for Glory series: Just fun to waste time with.

Starcraft.

Man, I started playing on Battle.net with a friend last week and now I'm hooked all over again.

On a more 'classic' note, Super Mario World. I love that game, and I've had a blast clearing it multiple times.

Oh, and I'll chuck a +1 in for both Advance Wars (especially 2) and Civilization. The hotseat modes of both are big boons.

BrookM wrote:Half-Life: The graphics are horrible compared to what we have today (it uses the Quake 2 engine) but HL is still near and dear to me because of well, everything. It's a cinematic game with great locales, memorable enemies and a great story to pull you through.

Half-Life actually uses the Quake 1 engine, but something around seventy percent of the code was rewritten to add features like skeletal animation and that sort of thing. Half-Life is definitely on my list of classics though.


Stuff that I still enjoy playing from time to time include a lot of Blizzard games (StarCraft, Diablo, Diablo II), as well as stuff like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy VII and IX, TIE Fighter, Jedi Knight. Sometimes I even fire up Wolfenstein 3-D.

Actually, the more I think of it, I probably play more "classic" games now than I do new games!

Hordini wrote:

BrookM wrote:Half-Life: The graphics are horrible compared to what we have today (it uses the Quake 2 engine) but HL is still near and dear to me because of well, everything. It's a cinematic game with great locales, memorable enemies and a great story to pull you through.

Half-Life actually uses the Quake 1 engine, but something around seventy percent of the code was rewritten to add features like skeletal animation and that sort of thing. Half-Life is definitely on my list of classics though.


Stuff that I still enjoy playing from time to time include a lot of Blizzard games (StarCraft, Diablo, Diablo II), as well as stuff like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy III, Final Fantasy VII and IX, TIE Fighter, Jedi Knight. Sometimes I even fire up Wolfenstein 3-D.

Actually, the more I think of it, I probably play more "classic" games now than I do new games!

Yeah, now that you mention it, I do too. I can see it now. In about twenty to thirty years we'll sound something like this...

"In my day we didn't have all of this 'Immersive 3-D' and 'Predictive Psionic Control' crap. We played games on a keyboard and mouse with a cathode-ray picture tube! Outside in the snow and we loved it. Hell, I could still fire up a game of Civ and play for four straight days between naps! And the guys that designed our games didn't get the benefit of A.I. think-tanks to write code. They did it themselves, with keyboards and mice too! Outside, in Alaska during the thirty days of night! So don't you go bragging about your new games sonny. I played games back when only men made them and only men played them."

I too LOVE final fantasy tatics. Dear lord that game(and advanced wasnt too shabby either) was awesome.
I actually bought a PS1 slim that had a screen mounted on it, JUST because the game store actually had civilization2 on a shelf lol
Speaking of the final fantasy games, the old school, original on up to what was it 4 or 5 on the SNES were just the gak! God I miss playing the original, and getting unlucky enough to get into a fight with the random SCREEN of enemies lol. You just DIE! how exciting is that lol

Heroes of Might and Magic II, Doom I & II, Shining Force II, Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger are all games I can play without ever being in the mood to play.

X-Com: UFO Defense

malfred wrote:X-Com: UFO Defense

X-Com and X-Com 2 although very similar are both fantastic! Good call! I liked the third too but not as much as 1 & 2. Are those even still available and playable? I would buy them! Those are legendary I just haven't played them since, what, 94, 95? I loved being able to customize every team member. Man, those games were hard as hell too! I remember having to start over more than a few times because I couldn't keep up.

Dammit Mal! Now I'm gonna have to scour the internet for a copy!

GoFenris wrote:
Dammit Mal! Now I'm gonna have to scour the internet for a copy!

*goes to do this as well*

SUCCESS!!!! Mwa-ha-ha!!!

Ah, it's like an old friend has come home!

GoFenris wrote:SUCCESS!!!! Mwa-ha-ha!!!

Ah, it's like an old friend has come home!

Oh! I wants to be successful too!

*digs through old games to find copies of X-Com.*

*finds Mechwarrior 2 instead*

*digs through some more...*

X-com can be bought for five dollars on STEAM.

Heros of might and magic, Diablo 2, Civ , Dungeon master

all games i love to float back to when the steam servers die (ALL THE TIME) or on patch day

Clthomps wrote:If I could only have one game for the rest of my life it would be:

Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen

Now here is a man with good taste.

Throw in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and well lets just say you'd be set in to the afterlife.

Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre is one of the best series around. Shame we haven't had a new title since what, that GBA Tactics Ogre?

We need a new Ogre Battle.

Clthomps - if you have a Wii the SNES Ogre Battle has been made available as a download via the Virtual Console.

I wish I had a PSX copy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you guys haven't played Vagrant Story for the PSX you're missing out on one of Squaresoft's best games. Ever.

Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Vagrant Story are just about my holy trinity of RPG's from Square.