Your Favorite Games

you’re aaaaaaaalright

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  1. HITMAN: World Of Assassination Trilogy
  2. Portal and Portal 2
  3. All of the Firaxis XCOM games since 2012’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown

They’re my Big Three, like lots of other games aside from those, but these ones are the LOVE games.

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Hitman - pretty obvious one. Played through the entire series, including Absolution sniper challenge, GO and that old mobile sniper game. Gameplay-wise Blood Money is considered the best, but the most memorable one for me was Codename 47. And it’s not my nostalgia speaking, I’ve played all the OG games between the releases of Absolution and H2016.

GTA series - completed every single title, even the least known ones, and keep playing Online, despite its quality is way lower than the singleplayer games. I love how they do an amazing job of depicting vibes of different cities and pop-cultures of different eras. The story is always on point with unique humour and references to movies and the soundtrack is a pure gold. Love each of them, but IV is my favourite.

Payday 2 - a buggy game on a dogshit engine, which supposed to be a heist simulator but ended up being a mediocre zombie shooter with poor optional stealth. Devs keep milking it for years by adding low effort DLCs because all their other games failed, I keep paying for that bullshit and somehow enjoying it.

Hotline Miami 1&2 - didn’t look very promising for me, but gave it a try for 2 reasons: I was looking for a game about Miami 80s and wondered who tf is that creepy guy from Payday. Didn’t regret. Love the vibe and the soundtrack, which got me into the synthwave genre. As for the gameplay, it’s fast paced, crazy and challenging. The point is to learn the floor by trial and error, and then clear it as clean as you can. It’s possible to beat it just by luring enemies one by one, but to me it’s very unfun thing to do. The game is all about wacky suicidal routes and keeping the combo.

Max Payne - a really unique series of third person shooters, nowhere else you can find such a beautiful and cinematic gunplay. In that matter it’s similar to Hotline Miami - the point is to not just beat the level, but a clean performance after some trial and error, that would make you feel like a real action movie hero. I prefer first two games over the third one for the noir vibes and the dark story, but MP3 is also good in its own way.

CS:GO - competitive tactical shooter. Easy to learn, hard to master. Not sure why exactly I prefer it over other ones, such as Rainbow Six and Valorant, it just feels better to me. Everyone complains about hackers, but I somehow don’t meet them that often. Who I actually meet all the time are teammates from a hostile country - they don’t like me, I don’t like them, but we somehow should play in one team because we are geographically close. Why don’t let players choose the server manually?

Portal 1&2 - an amazing and unique first person puzzle platformer. That’s it.

Mafia 1&2 - they were amazing, 10/10. Third one didn’t hook me and I didn’t play it much, but maybe I should give it one more chance. Didn’t play the Mafia 1 remake yet.

Assassin’s Creed - used to love this one, but dropped the series on Rogue a long time ago.

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Favourite: HITMAN WOA
Favourite FPS: Fallout New Vegas but in terms of actual shooters Duke Nukem 3D
Favourite rhythm game: Rhythm Heaven Megamix
Favourite narrative: Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward
Favourite turn based RPG: Lufia II for overall package, but mechanically Bravely Default even if I don’t like the game nearly as much.
Favourite RPG: Fallout New Vegas but also Deus Ex
Favourite horror game: Subnautica is scarier than any horror game
Favourite strategy game: Code Name S.T.E.A.M.
Favourite non Hitman stealth: Thief 2
Favourite puzzle game: It’s Mr Pants
Favourite sports game: Tony Hawk 1+2 Remake
Favourite platformer: Crash Bandicoot 4

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Ah, another Payday 2 connoisseur. If people think IOI make questionable decisions, they haven’t had the joy of keeping up with Overkill’s nonsense, and the joy of the Diesel Engine, an engine held together by duct tape. And yet I’ve put in easily a few hundred hours into Payday 2, although haven’t touched it in the last few years.

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  1. Hitman
  2. Sleeping Dogs & GTA V
  3. Unreal Tournament 1999
  4. Pro Evolution soccer
  5. Call of Duty
  6. Counter strike
  7. Yakuza
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The best part about Payday 2 is how it uses a racing game engine, yet the actual driving in the game is some of the worst that I’ve ever experienced.

If I remember correctly, the motorcycles are reskinned forklifts.

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The reason I like seperating things by series or genre is I wind up with this.

Don’t worry old people, Hitman C47, 2SA, Contracts, Sniper Challenge and Hitman Go are great games too that I rank really highly.

(I made this high quality picture myself)

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Ok, I gotta ask. If you were to treat the WoA trilogy as one game (which it is :smirk: ), thus moving BM to No. 2 and SF64 to No. 3, what would be the substitutes for No. 4 and 5?

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One game I’ve paid over 200€ to play it :eyes:

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I don’t have an actual set order but in no particular order my other favourite games are

Majora’s Mask, Deus Ex, Fallout New Vegas, Crash Bandicoot 4, Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic Mania, Lufia 2, WarioWare Gold, The Movies.

I don’t know what’s 4, 5, ect. The order fluctuates anyway depending on the mood. But just to be annoying I’ll say the new list is.

Star Fox 64 (NTSC)
Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64 PAL)
Star Fox 64 3D
Hitman Blood Money
HITMAN WOA

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I saw this thread two days ago and started writing a list of all games I’ve played so I wouldn’t miss anything. There has been 12 houses and 19 different PCs/Consoles I’ve played in so the list is just all over the place. It’s been an unsuccessful attempt.

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i feel personally attacked

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I had adults (technically) call me old for being born before the Nintendo DS (2004) so I need to share that misery.

Us old people need to be put in our place.

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games wot i really like in no particular order:

hitman series

you already know all this. interactive sandbox environments, robust but predictable ai behaviour, and the tools to manipulate both, all coalesce to allow players to express themselves in really interesting and murderous ways. it’s effectively an immersive sim, a puzzle game, a racing game, and promenade theatre* rolled into one. it’s also pretty funny. nothing out there quite like it. mumbai 4eva.

(*ask me about that one some time.)

max payne series

mp3 aside, the differences between the first two entries are far more pronounced than the series is often given credit for. regardless, the unifying factor between them all is how max payne allows players to easily choreograph their own gloriously chaotic john woo action scenes. ignoring the original’s dream sequences, this series is a blast to play from start to finish; doubly so with a good kung fu mod. also: mp3’s multiplayer was unfairly overlooked, by both the playerbase and the devs. damn shame.

syndicate (amiga original)

for those of you whose hair is still slick with amniotic fluid, syndicate was an isometric, real-time strategy game (this will shortly come back to haunt me) that put you in the role of a megacorp executive in a cyberpunk dystopia. you were in charge of a customisable band of up to 4 corporate assassins, tasked with completing various missions around the world (assassination, kidnapping, hostage rescue, etc.) in whatever way you saw fit. you could arm your team with pistols, flamethrowers, the almighty guass gun, the mind-controlling persuadatron - all sorts of insanely powerful equipment. additionally, you could upgrade your team’s bodies and chemical makeup into near indestructible, untiring replicants. it was brutal. it was hilarious. i genuinely miss setting crowds of people on fire and watching them run around screaming before disintegrating into piles of ash. wholesome bloody fun.

metal gear solid 2 & 3

kojima isn’t a good writer. there. i said it. like, i love the mgs lore, but i love it in the same way my friends used to love slumming it with the melodrama of wrestling ‘stories’. kojima is, however, a monumentally good game designer. the moment-to-moment gameplay in mgs 2 and 3 is full of possibility and always impresses with its attention to detail. it is oddly comforting to find a built-in reaction to/acknowledgement of everything the player tries… and when i say everything, i mean everything. it’s spooky at times. glorious games that deserve their classic status. fuck mgs4 though.

hotline miami

this is a nasty, ugly and deeply hypocritical game. it’s also perfect (?). the art, music and gameplay all synergise into a hyper-violent, ultra-fast, mega-fun game of dot-to-dot, prescriptive enough to demand perfection and open enough to support player expression. the fact that it only takes half a second to restart makes dying repeatedly so much more palatable. the terrifying secret at the heart of hotline miami is that every element of the game conspires to put you in the headspace of the main character… and it works. it’s telling that the only genuine critique that i can muster for it is its trite thematic ‘gotcha’. it really is a ‘perfect’ game. weirdly, i’ve yet to finish 2.

disco elysium

basically, a bunch of estonians made a game specifically for me. seriously, i can’t get across how much this game speaks to me, a man deeply entrenched in middle age. it’s some of my favourite writing in any medium and one of the few authorial voices i wish i could replicate. the skill system is so insanely perfect that i’m surprised no one thought of it before. also: kim kitsuragi is such a bae, i cannot bring myself to disappoint him and i can’t say that about any other characters. even with its a seemingly disaffected cynicism, this game makes me care.

far cry 2

i tend to respond favourably to games that don’t pander to me; that expect me to learn them and play them on their terms. as such, i’ve never really liked a far cry game before or since 2, and i think it’s because the others are too friendly, desperately waving their arms around for my attention, always giving me gifts and ideas of what to do. far cry 2 doesn’t care about me or my attention. far cry 2 is a beautiful ice queen that stamps on my balls with 8 inch stilettos. far cry 2 hates me. every mission provides a tense, gruelling, chaotic, frustrating, and oftentimes very funny journey through an uncomfortable digital recreation of an ongoing conflict. oddly, that context actually makes me feel a bit icky playing it which - odder still - makes it a better experience? i’m sick.

stellaris

aside from chess and a few old total war games, i’m not much of a strategy type of guy… but stellaris has awakened something in me. in a way, it is a deeply engrossing and complex economy simulator. it is more than that though: there’s war, peace, trade, espionage, diplomacy, genetic manipulation, psychological warfare, genocide, megastructures, secret police, eating other species, rebellion, psychics, slavery, robot uprisings, transcendence to other dimensions - the list goes on. if anything, it’s a sci-fi story generator, covering everything from epic space operas to mind-bending lovecraftian nightmares, and all the varied ground in between. better yet, it’s a game about creating a history for a galactic empire you made from scratch. fascinating stuff.

superhot/superhot: mind, control, delete

superhot deconstructs action games by making time move only when the player does (sort of). it explodes every microscopic, reactive decision you’d make in, say, doom, into an examined strategic choice. it allows you to think many moves ahead and to choreograph combat scenarios that might otherwise be impossible at full speed. while the original feels a little barebones, it’s never boring. the tools you have are just enough to set up some truly crazy scenarios. i’ve lost an embarrassing amount of time in superhot’s horde mode equivalent. the creepy meta story that frames everything is way better than it has any right to be, too. while the gimmick wore off on others very quickly, i continue to adore these games.

fallout: new vegas

this just about tops morrowind as my favourite open world rpg. while i usually have multiple characters on the go in any other game of the same genre, i only did one playthrough here, albeit one that was hundreds of hours long and spanned real world years of my life. all of that is to say, it sucked me in - not ‘off’ - good and proper. just an amazing space to spend time in, both in terms of its geo-physical design and the societies that populated it. every trek was rewarded with an engrossing new discovery. every character felt ‘real’ and distinct. every quest was robust and well written. the dlc was integrated brilliantly, and the big finales of each felt appropriately high-stakes. just a great overall experience and the benchmark against which i judge other similar rpgs.

spy vs spy 2: island caper

this game is for bastards. two spies are stuck on an island and must put together parts of the only means of escape, a rocket, while simultaneously hampering their opponent’s chances. this primarily involves laying traps and - more importantly - remembering where you put them (you can easily be hoisted by your own petard). it promotes cunning, skullduggery, and general bastardiousness. it’s hilariously frantic and easily one of my favourite multiplayer games.

specialist mod for half-life

basically, this was a max payne/matrix multiplayer game a decade before the official ones. levels were ripped straight from movies, such as the lobby from the matrix, and almost entirely destructible. every match was 16 players running around, diving, kung fu-ing, wall-running, super-jumping, shooting, sliding, katana-throwing, and bullet-timing everywhere. it was chaotic, janky and some of the most fun i’ve had in a multiplayer game.

absolver

i do have a soft spot for fighting games, even though i get pounded like a lost puppy whenever i go online. out of all the ones ive played (international karate plus being my first), absolver is far and away my favourite. that you can build a(n almost) completely unique fighting style from a deck of hundreds of moves is mind-blowing. every move links seamlessly and at varying speeds, which adds depth to your choices. it’s a case of constant refinement, knowing your deck inside out, knowing the speed and order of moves in certain chains, how each chain links, and knowing how to access the right move in the right situation. phenomenal art design and beautiful animation makes absolver an absolute joy to play. netcode? ehhh, not so much.

sifu

a 3d brawler from the folks that brought us absolver. it looks like it takes its cues from sleeping dogs, but this couldn’t be further from the truth; it is closer to sekiro than anything else. the combat system is grounded and far deeper than you might initially think, with new tech and combos being discovered daily (it has only been out a few months). if you love martial arts movies and a good challenge, you’d be a fool - a full on zero watt bulb - not to give this bad boy a spin. again, the art design, animation and music puts this game on another level. there is nothing else out there that scratches the itch sifu does.

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right this is getting way too long already and i’m bored of writing this much. i’m just going to fire out the rest of the ones i remember:

ninja gaiden black, outer wilds, monkey island 1 & 2, splinter cell: chaos theory, metal gear revengence, red dead redemption 1 & 2, sekiro (to be honest, any from game could go here, barring ds2), portal 1 & 2, mirror’s edge, alien: isolation, dishonored series, prey/mooncrash, midwinter 2, cannon fodder, star raiders, chaos engine, asteroids, sunless sea, enigma force, darkest dungeon, turrican, tie fighter, streets of rage 2 & 4, final fantasy vii, dungeon master, populous 2, cultist simulator, nier automata, medieval total war, shogun total war, star wars: supremacy, flashback, shadow of the colossus, hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy, jedi academy, operation: crossbow, elite 2: frontier, samurai warrior: the battle of usagi yojimbo, joust, tetris effect, gta iv, rainbow six vegas, beneath a steel sky, worms…

…imma stop there. i’m sure i’ve missed loads and i could keep adding to the list. if you actually got this far, the hell is wrong with you?

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Its so incredibly wonderful to read through all this, really engrossing!

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STAGE 1: Denial

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Imagine not thinking mumbai is the best level in the trilogy

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that’s in egypt though?

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