What Games DO You Like?

[Tequila Sunrise]

It's refreshing to see so many [mostly] unconditionally positive mentions of games. Now I'll make a few comments that your mentions have inspired:

Cards

Magic: the Gathering (although I've been clean for years and have no intention of relapsing, it is an awesome game)

I completely sympathize with this sentiment. M:tG is some kind of crack, and it's a daily struggle to not go out and buy a new deck and booster packs.

What I would love to do is print my own cards for some friends, but none of my local friends are interested in M:tG. Also, M:tG players tend to be limited in the imagination department so not many are interested in homebrew cards.

Scrabble: A decent game. Tangentially, I played a game called Quiddler at my last family reunion that was a lot of fun. It's basically Scrabble in card form; plays fast and intense. Out of eight people, my cousin's immigrant boyfriend beat all of us, including me, with an English degree, and my mother, an English teacher. Who says immigrants are lazy and stupid, eh?

Tarot: I'd love to actually play a game with my deck, as I'm not spiritual so I only use it to occasionally charm one of the fair sex. Still working on this one.

"RPG" Video Games
Kingdom Hearts: Don't own it, play it occasionally at friends'. I'd love to love it, but I think it'd be better as a film. I suck at video games, so actually fighting through all those soulless just gets in the way of the story. Damn I feel dirty, like a grognard complaining that all the options in recent D&D editions get in the way of rp. I need to take a shower.

Planescape Torment: Will play someday, just because PS is the best D&D setting ever.

FF: The little I've played of FF (only FFXII all the way through) has been awesome!

Diablo: Awesome, can't wait for D3!

WoW: Yeah, I play that too.

Board
Monopoly, Risk and Clue were all childhood faves, because even then I liked complicated games. Before I discovered role playing, I had every sale, rent and mortgage value memorizes in Monopoly.

Axis & Allies/Napoleon in Europe: Played these in college. Great fun the first couple times, but it got a bit dull after repeatedly losing to my history buff friends and those who invariably teamed up and never turned on each other.

RPGs
Feng Shui: Don't have any specific desire to play it, but I do have a question for those who do: why is it called that?! Is it a play on words, or do those words have meaning other than 'arranging stuff neatly,' or is that really what the game's about?

Exalted: Own it, but only ever played a pbp game for a couple months. I'm right now running the Exalted setting with D&D 4e rules, which fit each other like a hand and glove.

And last but not least, 4e D&D is my rpg of choice. It's the only one I don't have to house rule halfway to its core to play roughly the way I want. (I still house rule a bit, of course.)

[NineInchNall]

Meh, Ninja Gaiden Black wasn't as good as the Hurricane Pack.

[MGuy]

Ninja Gaiden gives me manual dexterity nightmares.

I forgot to list small time games such as Zeonic Front, Front Mission 1-4, Fire Emblem (all except the Gamecube ones I haven't played), and Armored Core (2 and on from there).

[traverse]

Tabletop
Tomes DnD 3.5 | I've been constantly playing some version of 3e since I began tabletopping.
Godlike | It is way to easy to break that game, but I read the world events outline and talent dossiers like a child, enraptured.

Board Games
HeroQuest | Mah first tabletop RPG.

Card Games
Magic: The Gathering | Had a sub to Inquest for years. Never play anymore.
Fluxx

Video Games
Anything from:
Valve
Bethesda
Black Isle/Bioware
Yasumi Matsuno
Shigesato Itoi
Tim Schafer
Series:
Suikoden (2, in particular)
The Castlevania RPGs
Metal Gear
Grand Theft Auto
Ratchet And Clank
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Also:
Xenogears
Chrono Trigger
Beyond Good And Evil
City of Villains | So much better than heroes.
Castle of the Winds

(I'd be here for an hour trying to get down all of the old DOS/Door games and MUDs I love.)

[Maj]

I'm not much of a gamer, but here's what I've got.

RPGs

Everway
D&D 3.0

(I've played Shadowrun, Vampire, and other versions of D&D, but I'll pass)


Board Games

Crack the Case
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Trivial Pursuit
Boggle
Apples to Apples
Dread Pirate
Settlers of Catan
Ninja Burger
Pictionary (bastardized)
Pokemon (the card game)
Labyrinth (stupid kid's game that travels very well)


Computer Games

Civilization IV
Pharoah/Cleopatra
Zeus/Poseidon
Emperor
The Sims
Freecell
Sleuth


Video Games

Myst, etc
MarioKart
Smash Brothers
Perfect Dark
Dr. Mario
Legend of Mana
Tetris

[RandomCasualty2]

I'm right now running the Exalted setting with D&D 4e rules, which fit each other like a hand and glove.

Doesn't exalted got crazy shit like guys throwing mountains?

How does that fit with 4E at all?

[Ganbare Gincun]

Does anyone here like/play GURPS? I don't recall seeing any discussion of the game on the forum (at least not since I've been here), and I was wondering if it would be worth my while to take a look at it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

More on video games:

Every Mario RPG ever, with the exception of Super Paper Mario and Partners in Time, which I just find average. Out of the entire library of games, I'd have to save that my favorites are Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Bowser's Inside Story. Those games pretty much do everything perfectly, especially the Thousand Year Door. The world of Rogueport drew me in like few RPG settings do nowadays; not a bad accomplishment at all for a game that mostly focuses on comedy. I've gone into a lot of detail about how good Bowser's Inside Story is on the videogame thread.

Seiken Densetsu 3: Secret of Mana and Secret of Evermore don't really do anything for me (though I love Secret of Evermore's music) but SD3 is awesome. It has a plot of epic scope that eclipses every RPG of that era, including Chrono Trigger's, and has an engaging and action-packed battle system. The only complaint I have about that game is that magic tends to slow things down. This is better than in Secret of Mana where magic causes the game to slow to a grinding halt, but still.

Tales of Symphonia: This game ranks someone between So Bad It's Good and Crazy Good. The plot is extremely cheesy and sentimental; imagine if you asked an intelligent 12-year old kid to come up with a plot where heroes defeat racism in a fantasy world once and for all. But I still genuinely like it despite the game playing like a Captain Planet cartoon, probably because the game is so earnest about the message. The battle system is great, too; later games in the series like Tales of Vesperia and the Abyss improve on the battle system but they can't match the plot.

Valkyria Chronicles: I pretty much bought a PS3 so I could play this game. I am not disappointed. It's an incredibly awesome action RPG strategy game where you take the individual roles of soldiers in a WWII-ish steampunk world. There's a lot of tactics and planning involved and even some very mild FPS elements. The plot is pretty sweet, too, taking the tired 'one small squad wins the war' trope common to this type of entertainment and making it credible.

Chrono Trigger: People have called this the best 16-bit era jRPG, period, and while I don't completely agree with that (I think you can make better cases for SD3 or SMRPG) there's no denying that it's a ton of fun. This game pretty much defined the art of the sidequest, especially in the latter half of the game--a paradigm that FF6 tried to reach but failed at--and gave us a lot of the cliches we take for granted today. The plucky teen inventor sidekick? Popularized here. Bratty teen princess with a heart of gold? Silent protagonist with a simple personality and big sword? Yo. The brooding antihero darklord who joins the heroes? Here, too. I also liked Chrono Trigger because, unlike other RPGs of the time, it thoroughly integrated its villain into the plot to the extent never before seen before. Though FF6 comes close to doing so, it just never reaches the level of care and dedication Chrono Trigger does and it makes Lavos one of the most threatening and evil antagonists ever designed in RPG history period despite that character never saying a word or menacing the heroes directly.

And then Chrono Cross came along and... and... sorry, I'm whining again. Let's move on.

Skies of Arcadia: This damn RPG came out during the 'dark age of RPGs' and it was a refreshing breath of air. This game is packed to the brim with cliches, bullshit morals, and sugar but it manages to take elements that would make most games seem hackneyed and make them exciting. The recruiting and shipping minigame was underutilized but very effective. It's a very effective gimmick that eventually collapses in on itself due to two fatal flaws (fortunately, it's only the last two battles where the flaws become really evident) but still, very awesome. Plus, the dungeon designs just kick fucking ass, except for the Valuan sewer level and the mine level--but then again, when what's the last time you played a well-designed sewer or mine level?

Grandia II: See Skies of Arcadia. This RPG takes every cliche common in the transition from the FF6 to FF8 jRPG era and takes pains to make it fun. Unlike the other games in this list, you really need to be an NPC-talker to appreciate the depth of this game. Unfortunately, it's very easy to miss. The action system has a simple tweak to it that nonetheless changes the entire way the game is played--you see the enemy's ATB, too, and certain effects can send your enemies back on the ATB.

Lego Batman: This should go into Platformers, but I forgot about it. Seriously, it's probably the best of the Batman games. The variety in this game is mindboggling and the humor is great. It's the best part of the Adam West series and the Batman: The Animated Series.

Quest for Glory: I love all of the Quest for Glories, even the 5th one. They're like my little childrens! I only have two major complaints about the game series and unfortunately they're universal to all of the games--no matter how badass your character gets there are just some people who will pull down your pants and whip your naughty ass without you giving them proper comeuppance no matter how hard you train. Which is not a good thing in a game that's based on going from zero to hero. The other major thing is that the games are not shy about railroading you into monumentally stupid things--QFG3 and QFG2 are particularly bad about this.

But other than that, this game is great about making your hero make the transition from a loser with big dreams to a genuine badass without making him do morally questionable or dickish things. In QFG, being a good person and heroic comes with its own reward and QFG4 is in particular wonderful about showing you how good rules and evil sucks. The game is also brutally funny in many places; there are tons of double-entendres and puns. Oh Lord there are a lot of puns.

Quest for Glory 4 is my favorite (and is in fact the one I started playing), but if someone new to the series wants to play I recommend starting with the second one. The events from that game influences everything that happens thereafter and what happens in the first game isn't really important to understanding the story in two.


I could really go on all day about videogames I like, but this really isn't the time or place about it. Aren't you glad that there's a thread specifically devoted to talking about videogames?

[Caedrus]

More on video games:

Every Mario RPG ever, with the exception of Super Paper Mario and Partners in Time, which I just find average. Out of the entire library of games, I'd have to save that my favorites are Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Bowser's Inside Story. Those games pretty much do everything perfectly, especially the Thousand Year Door. The world of Rogueport drew me in like few RPG settings do nowadays; not a bad accomplishment at all for a game that mostly focuses on comedy. I've gone into a lot of detail about how good Bowser's Inside Story is on the videogame thread.

I am playing through Bowser's Inside Story right now. I currently just sit inside, at home, ignoring my consoles, racking up hours on it. It is fucking badass.

[TarkisFlux]

Lego Batman: This should go into Platformers, but I forgot about it. Seriously, it's probably the best of the Batman games. The variety in this game is mindboggling and the humor is great. It's the best part of the Adam West series and the Batman: The Animated Series.

I would agree if I hadn't played Batman: Arkham Asylum. Joker spends the whole game mocking you and rooting against his henchmen when you start beating them, it's got most of the animated series voices, combat feels as smooth as it should for the bat (and is surprisingly varied despite its simplicity), it actually makes stealth gameplay work, the story is entertaining and makes good use of the large number of villains, etc. Best. Batman. Title. Ever. Exclamation Point. Exclamation Point. Exclamation Point.

[Josh_Kablack]

Tangentially, I played a game called Quiddler at my last family reunion that was a lot of fun. It's basically Scrabble in card form; plays fast and intense. Out of eight people, my cousin's immigrant boyfriend beat all of us, including me, with an English degree, and my mother, an English teacher.

Quiddler breaks in half if more than one person at the table has been exposed to serious tournament Scrabble - those people will never fail to dump their hands on turn 1.

But in groups where Aa, En, Xi, Xu, and similar two-three letter words used more often in Scrabble than anywhere else are laughed off as nonsense, it can be quite entertaining.

[Tequila Sunrise]

All I ever hear is great things about Chrono Trigger; I've gotta play it sometime.

I'm right now running the Exalted setting with D&D 4e rules, which fit each other like a hand and glove.

Doesn't exalted got crazy shit like guys throwing mountains?

How does that fit with 4E at all?

Yeah, Exalted rules let characters do much crazier shit than D&D lets them do. What I mean is that the Exalted setting has a built-in reason why PCs have all kinds of pseudo/magical powers, why they can survive multiple stab wounds and why they're generally so badass. (Yeah I know hp aren't supposed to be a strict measure of physical injury, but I call BS.)

Exalted also makes it easy to pair PC/monster rankings to protagonists and antagonists: mortals are minions, dragon-blooded are goons (aka half-minions), other exalts are standard monsters, solars are PCs, demons are elites and primordials and major gods are solos. I know the default D&D assumptions about rankings aren't so specific, but I like them this way.

Quiddler breaks in half if more than one person at the table has been exposed to serious tournament Scrabble - those people will never fail to dump their hands on turn 1.

Yeah, the first three or four hands were dumped on turn 1. Maybe that gets irritating after a few games, but it was refreshing to play such a fast-paced spelling game for once.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Chrono Trigger is still very much worth playing even today.

While a lot of transformative games like Final Fantasy IV, Dragon Quest, Secret of Mana, etc. aren't honestly of really much interest to people who weren't there at the time Chrono Trigger still remains relevant. The time-travel plot it uses it very unique, even to this day, and the game avoids a lot of the more irritating elements of the genre such as the pointless sidequest, level grinding, and character obsolescence.

[Murtak]

RPGs: DnD (3rd), Shadowrun (4th), Feng Shui, Amber
TCGs: L5R
Board Games: Arkham Horror, Descent, Cosmic Encounter, Carcassone, Robo Rally
Tabletop: Confrontation
PC: Too many too list, right now replaying Morrowind
Consoles: too many to list, some that stand out are Kingdom Hearts, some of the FF, Soul Calibur

[Caedrus]

Chrono Trigger is still very much worth playing even today.

Of the SNES RPGs, I'd pick out four as really still relevant today.

Those are: Chrono Trigger, Tales of Phantasia (sadly never came out in US), Final Fantasy 6 (3 in the US), and Super Mario RPG. You can totally play any of those right now and they're still completely awesome and easily stand up to the better RPGs of today. Only one of those I'm iffy on is Super Mario RPG, because there are pretty clear improvements in the course of that series, and in all honesty it wouldn't stand up to the awesomeness of, say, Bowser's Inside Story today.

[Josh_Kablack]

Quiddler breaks in half if more than one person at the table has been exposed to serious tournament Scrabble - those people will never fail to dump their hands on turn 1.

Yeah, the first three or four hands were dumped on turn 1. Maybe that gets irritating after a few games, but it was refreshing to play such a fast-paced spelling game for once.

Then you'll want to check out Banagrams

[Lago PARANOIA]

Of the SNES RPGs, I'd pick out four as really still relevant today.

For SNES RPGs with a NA release, the ones I'd call relevant are:

Chrono Trigger
Super Mario RPG (though like you said every other game in the series does what this game does, but better--except for Super Paper Mario)
Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (though this is stretching out RPG to its loosest possible definition)
Soulblazer

If you want to expand it to ALL RPGs for the SNES:

Final Fantasy V (I think this game has aged better than 4 and 6 even though the characterization in the other two are better)
Front Mission
Eien no Filena (if nothing else but the dripping lesbianism and anti-racist message even more cheesy than Tales of Symphonia)
Bahamut Lagoon
Seiken Densetsu 3
Star Ocean

I don't consider FF4 or FF6 relevant. All of their good points were done better by other 16-bit RPGs. Secret of Mana and Evermore are still good, but everything they do is done better by Seiken Densetsu 3. Tales of Phantasia is just done better by Star Ocean, but the games retain enough thematic differences that Star Ocean can't just completely replace it. I'm honestly on the fence about Breath of Fire II--it does do a few things rare in jRPGs and did the 'corrupt Christian religion' theme years before any other RPG got around to it with the possible exception of Eien no Filena.

[Caedrus]

Soulblazer
Front Mission
Eien no Filena (if nothing else but the dripping lesbianism and anti-racist message even more cheesy than Tales of Symphonia)
Bahamut Lagoon
Seiken Densetsu 3
Star Ocean

I have not played these games. Tell me of them! And for the ones without a NA release, where can I get a good translation?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Soulblazer is a top-down RPG in the style of Legend of Zelda but with more emphasis on combat rather than puzzle-solving. The villain Deathtoll has bought everyone's soul and has imprisoned them in dungeons and God sends his avatar to the earth to free people; you gradually recreate towns and talk to the people you free to get stupid shit you need to complete dungeons. Oh, also, everyone in this game is sapient--and by everyone I mean dolls, doors, tree stumps, and so-on. This makes the game very creepy when you talk to goats who have a romantic attraction towards humans and dressers fantasize about having things stuffed into them.

Front Mission is an isometric strategy game that focuses on giant robots during The War. It's actually a franchise. But anyway, you get your team of giant robots, upgrade them with vulcan cannons and missiles and shit, and fight for freedom and justice. Quite a bit of customization for these kind of games.

Eien no Filena is a game that has an anime that has an OAV. All three failed miserably as far as I can tell. Anyway, your protagonist is the princess of a defeated undersea kingdom and she and all of her people are slaves in an ultra-racist evil empire. Her grandpa disguises her as a boy and she grows up as a gladiator. Anyway after kicking some ass in the arena she is rewarded/made to become a 'man' by offering her a concubine Lila. They escape and go on adventures to restore the kingdom.

Bahamut Lagoon is a bit harder to describe. It's a fantasy game that focuses on floating continents, castle-staffing, and dragonriders. Kind of cliched plot but LOADS of customization. If you like grinding (I don't) you'll probably love this game.

Seiken Densetsu 3 is the official sequel to Secret of Mana. You choose 3 out of 6 people for your party and they all have wildly varying movesets and abilities--especially later in the game when you class change. Twice even. Three uberbadguys are banding together for generic villainy and the heroes confront their schemes all at once, but depending on the lead hero you pick you see that particular badguy's part of the plan. Uses the same combat engine as Secret of Mana but lots more variety with enemies and bosses.

Star Ocean is sort of like Final Fantasy meets Star Trek, like every game in the franchise. It's played more-or-less from the viewpoint of the pre-industrial creatures who meet friendly extraterrestrial humans. You combine swordplay and magic with sci-fi and wreck peoples' shit while getting involved in intergalactic intrigue--though the first part of the game is still mostly grounded in fantasy. The combat engine is action-packed but laughably outdated. If you thought Tales of Phantasia's method of action-combat was limited, well. But unlike ToP you get the option to control more than just your own character. There's also a detailed item creation system which unfortunately has a crippling bug in it to prevent it from working--fortunately fan translations correct this bug.


Anyway, you can find translations for all of these games at www.romhacking.net. This website does NOT carry ROMs nor tells you where to get them. All it does it link you to websites that did the translation.

Romhacking.net does more than just link to SNES translations, but that's what they specialize in. There are even a few PSX translations and one of Earthbound 3.

[shadzar]

Star Ocean is on PSP. The original never made it out of Japan. Star Ocean:Till the End of Time is on PS2. One character was too loli and had a lot of scenes cut as well as being cut from being a playable character for more than a short time. Pepita/Rosetta was her name as a circus performer.

The director's cut version is also out and part of Sony's greatest hits.

[Caedrus]

Star Ocean is on PSP.

I will not buy a PSP until the day that someone can actually show me some damn decent games on it that is not a port or a port-esque sidestory to a better playstation game.

[Ravyn Dawnbringer]

Tabletops (The best kind of games). Be prepared for the list.
Dnd 3.5/tomified. Cause tome is sex.
Demon: the fallen. You are a demon. You created a piece of reality. Discuss.
Vampire: The masquerade. The police shoot you. You eat their heads.
Werewolf: The apocalypse. The police shoot you. You eat the world.
Exalted would be fun, if I could find players to play it. Medicine 5: You can cure cancer. In a few short seconds. Win
Call of Cthulu d20. Cause I'm a dm and making players cry like little girls is amusing once in a while. Especially since they do the same to me in regular dnd all the time.
Star wars d20 Can I use a lightsaber? Yes. Yes you can.

Computer games. Again, the list
First of all, Colonization, and not that new one that's the civ4 engine with passable peaks. Return to DOS? version.
HoMMV
Fallout 3
WoW. Bite me. I'm at 80, so it's fun and different depending on my mood.
TeS: Oblivion
Command and Conquer. All of them.
Age of empires and mythology.
Rise of Nations
Civilization 4
Empire Earth
Galactic Civilizations: The iKorx. Lol
Pharaoh
Diablo, in all it's incarnations, past, present and future.
Neverwinter Nights. Cause orc wizards are hilarious and doable.
Aion online, in theory, not practice. Being an angel would be sweet, if it were presented in a non-grind-the-hell-out-of-this fasion and more thematic.
And a host of others my tired mind cannot think of currently.

Console:
Star Ocean. omgwtfbbqsweet
Call of duty: sniper rifle requires skill to use. Eat it halo.
Halo: Corner rockets remind me of trolls in 10'x15' rooms with no exits.
There are others. Again. Sleepy and dealing with drunks.

[shadzar]

Star Ocean is on PSP.

I will not buy a PSP until the day that someone can actually show me some damn decent games on it that is not a port or a port-esque sidestory to a better playstation game.

Don't blame you at all there. Ir was a remake anyway same as the second one. The only one for PS2 was Till the End of Time.

I think there was a 4th one, but it is/was PS3.

Till the End of Time was worth it for the Final Fantasy/Suikoden style of game.

Well sort of more like Xenosaga in how it doesn't stay on just one world throughout the game.

[Starmaker]

Tabletop RPGs

• Shadowrun (4e, because that's the only one I have books for) with Frank's Matrix rules
• D&D 3.5 Tome
• Paranoia
• Feng Shui

Boardgames

• Arkham Horror (and Shadowrun Horror)
• World of Warcraft
• Descent
• Condottiere (travels nicely)
• A Game of Thrones LCG (although I'm currently behind on chapter packs)

Videogames

• Immortal Defense

Best game ever. This will probably trigger a Google Alert and get the author looking at the thread, so I have to explain further.
ID is the only Tower Defense game that has a TVTropes article, although it's spoilery, so of you're for some reason considering clicking that link, play the totally free demo - 32 levels, clean install, no ad-spy-malware, no fucking with the Windows register, no license agreement (WAT?)

The premise goes like this: once upon a time, there was a peaceful comfy spacefaring startrekky nation that got attacked by a civilization vastly more powerful, so they used highly unreliable alien technology to fry up volunteers, one by one, in the hopes that one of them will ascend to heaven and wipe out the evil invaders once and for all.

Eleventh time's the charm, and the newly-ascended defender Subject K starts his mission in hyper-hyper-space, the highlights of which include, to put it in WH40k terms, killing Khorne, Tzeentch and two copies of Ynnead, making Necrons believe in love and personally kicking the ass of the most holy Emperor of Mankind at least twice.

Typical rewards for completing a level include understanding of the nature of games, truth, beauty, conflict, betrayal, reality, hate, love, honor, Dostoevsky's works, _____ (fill in the blank), and untimately zen. Sad and heartwarming at the same time. Oh, and the gameplay is solid.

• Master of Magic
• Dominions III
• Planescape: Torment
• Heroes of Might and Magic II and V
• Quest for Glory
• Loom
• King's Quest VI (excellent plot, clever puzzles, terrible execution: getting the best ending requires the player to be stupid, blind and very lucky as there's an arbitrary hidden order in which the puzzles must be solved that Sierra thinks is a feature)

The other major thing is that the games are not shy about railroading you into monumentally stupid things--QFG3 and QFG2 are particularly bad about this.
(...)
Quest for Glory 4 is my favorite (and is in fact the one I started playing) ...

I don't recall anything offensively railroading in II and III. Granted, in III, there's that peace meeting which ends in bloodshed, but it's more of a wham moment (all the good efforts were in vain) than plot induced stupidity. To think of it, the fourth game has the character hypnotized by a vampire chick's boobs for a better part of the game. (It's still the best of the series, though).

WoW. Bite me. I'm at 80, so it's fun and different depending on my mood.

Heh. I got tired of WoW when I hit 80 in a month on a dare: low-level quests are not interesting to complete anymore once the challenge is gone, and grinding dailies feels too much like a day job to be doing it for free.

[kosall]

PnP, Current:

AD&D
D&D 3.5 (various rulesets)
Homemade game (I don't have a name for it)

Computer:

WoW
DDO
Civ IV (Various Mods)
MoM (Old School running in DosBox)

Games I'd like to play:

3.5 Tome
Any Superhero game
Any of the WoD types of games