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Old Guard / Out of Character / A New World Order / Best 25 Games Ever (The Revised List)
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Emotions Legend
[quote][b]Remus (Jan 05, 2004 12:27 a.m.):[/b] [b]10. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time[/b] - [i]N64, Nintendo, 1998[/i] It's a bit surprising to me that on this list of my 25 favorite games, which includes 3 Square, 2 Rare, 2 Ion Storm, and 3 Ubisoft (albeit different divisions of each of the latter two), there is only a single game on this list which was helmed by legendary game maker Shigeru Miyamoto. I will add the disclaimer that I do not own a GameCube, and so any of the master's works more recent than the N64 have gone woefully unplayed by me. This game is an adventure, which means that it's an RPG, but shorter and with a better interface. It's a masterpiece, and it says something about how far gaming has come that this game has fallen to slot ten on a list such as this. It's difficult to decide what I should say about a game like this, as no single component is really extraordinary by itself. The whole package, however, is a great game. I will say this about OoT, however: this game made me care more about a game world -- and by that I mean both the world itself and the peoples that inhabit it -- than any other before or after it. The game is structured so that you are lead through three missions which act as vehicles to move you through the land of Hyrule, seeing the many sights it has to offer, before the plot kicks into gear and cataclysm tears that world you just explored to shreds. Upon first emerging from the Temple of Time and witnessing what had become of fair Hyrule, I kid you not, I spoke the words aloud, "Oh, Gannon, no, not this, this is too much, you've gone too far." I have never felt more driven to defeat a game foe. Like all Miyamoto's masterpieces, this should be played by everyone, regardless of gaming experience or genre preference. [b]09. Final Fantasy VII[/b] - [i]PS1, Squaresoft, 1997[/i] Like Starcraft (above), there has already been so much said about this game that I don't need to spend many words on it. If you haven't played it yet, either of you two, then you should. It is a Final Fantasy game, and if those aren't your thing, this probably won't be either. If you do, however, even marginally enjoy FFs, this is my personal favorite. It is the perfection of the Japanese RPG form, and I don't mind that Square has done so little to maintain my respect since -- they got it right this time, and perhaps it really should have been the Final Fantasy. Oh well. [b]08. The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time[/b] - [i]PC, Presto Studios, 1995[/i] The original Journeyman Project (technically the re-released [i]Turbo[/i] version for quad-speed drives, but who's counting) came with my family's first CD-ROM drive, and had to compete with Myst, which we received as a gift at the same time, for my time. Though I now recognize Myst as the better game, Journeyman won the battle hands down, if not the war. It was an inventory adventure at its heart, but from a first-person pre-rendered perspective like Myst, so its puzzles were less about understanding mechanisms and more about trying everything in your pockets on every hot point in the game (which was friendlier to this ten-year-old's sensibilities). Plus, it had time travel. If anyone reading this wants to know how to make a game appeal directly to me, just add time travel. The sequel, Buried in Time, left the original in the dust, however. The mystery plot centering around proving that your future self (who traveled back in time to enlist your help) has been framed takes you to a crippled space station, an English chateau, a Mayan temple, and Leonardo da Vinci's studio. I don't know how much was historically accurate and how much was BSed, but the BS was BSes well enough to make you wonder in the first place. Add to all this the witty and informative AI companion Arthur, who gives you useful information throughout the game and will hint at the solutions to the puzzles if you ask him to, and you have a great game. Though the presentation is more reminiscent of Myst than other inventory adventures such as The Dig (next), functionally it follows the format of the latter category. If you enjoy that now-deceased genre (Syberia and The Longest Journey notwithstanding), and even for those who prefer the Mystier games, this is a must-play. [b]07. The Dig[/b] - [i]PC, Lucasarts, 1995[/i] Ah, The Dig. Conceived as a movie idea by Steven Spielberg, the director (who did not have nearly the clout he now does in 1992) decided that the concept would be too expensive to film and its audience too narrow to justify it. He passed it along to his buddy, George Lucas, because grand philosophical space dramas were more his thing. George agreed that it wouldn't work as a movie, but he in turn gave it to Sean Clark, an designer for Lucasarts. Clark wrote, designed, and directed this simply brilliant adventure game, with the help of novelist Orson Scott Card (who wrote the game's extensive dialogue). Good voice acting and simply awesome music were some of the game's immediate and obvious highlights, but the plot, which centered around a species of aliens which had become obsessed with immortality, is fascinating and haunting. The puzzles are interesting and clever, but nothing you can't find in a King's Quest or on Monkey Island. It's the mature storytelling which makes this game stand out in my memory. If you enjoy inventory adventures such as the above-mentioned Sierra and Lucasarts games, this is easily one of the best, and you should waste no time in finding and playing it. A word of caution, however: like several other games on this list, it's DOS-based, meaning those with newer systems may not be able to get it to run. I run Windows 2000 currently, and Lucasarts tech support (which still has this game in its list) tells me there's just no way. Such a shame. [b]06. Deus Ex[/b] - [i]PC, Ion Storm, 2000[/i] This brainchild of Warren Spector, the man behind the System Shock games, this game is one of the most genre-bending titles in recent history. Part action FPS, part stealth adventure, and part RPG, this was one hell of a hard game to classify. But what really set Deus Ex apart from the pack was its adaptability. This was a game that you could play however you liked. Want to be a decked-out Rambo type, and charge in with guns blazing? Sure, you can do that, if you're good enough. Prefer to pull the ol' sneaky sniper trick and slip past some enemies while taking others out from a distance? Go for it. Or maybe you prefer to look at each level's layout and enemy placement as a complex puzzle -- if finding a way through without coming into conflict with anyone is your thing, you can do that too! The interplay between the game's skill system (where you are awarded points for exploration and goal achievement to upgrade your various skills) and nanotech augmentations (which allow you various superhuman abilities, ranging from strength and speed to cloaking and regeneration) allow for a fully customizable play experience. What's more, though the game's overall course was completely linear (except for the three possible endings), the details were remarkably fluid. The game characters [i]reacted[/i] to your actions in surprisingly complex ways. An example of this is a trip I made into the UNATCO ladies' room early in the game, looking for dropped items. I surprised a woman who was leaving just as I entered. A few minutes later, when I was summoned to the boss' office, at the end of the briefing I was warned to stay the hell out of the ladies room. This kind of reactivity is rare and immersive. Deus Ex is for anyone who can stomach the FPS presentation, period. It's that good. I recently played through the sequel, Invisible War (which fantastic fiancee Rebecca bought for me, along with our new Xbox). Though I miss many of the dropped features (the skill system among them), it had that open-ended Deus Ex feel to it that gave me happy shivers. It doesn't top the original, but then, what does? Which brings us to the top five, beginning with...[/quote]
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