Abe's Top Video Games - Another Five Years

[Abe Sargent]

Hello Folks!

I hope you are having a delightful day today!

This dynasty is a updated sequel of my sequel in 2015 of the Top 100 Video Games of All Time as voted on by...well...me. They represented a ton of games I personally played and enjoyed.

The original list was made some time ago. Since then I have encountered many more great games since then!

Let's hit this bad boy up again, shall we?



What recent games hit my happy Abe place? Any overlooked games you might have missed? What are some great games we all played together? Are there some games you'll expect to find that are missing? Might as well take a seat and check it out!

[Abe Sargent]

Here is my list for The back 37:

https://forums.operationsports.com/f...ad.php?t=74086

Here is my middle 30

https://forums.operationsports.com/f...ad.php?t=64595


And finally my top 30:

https://forums.operationsports.com/f...ad.php?t=51381



And then here was my first, Recent Games I Found - The Next 25 Video Games - UPDATED For 2015 - Front Office Football Central

[Abe Sargent]

Honorable Mention #1. Dark Future: Blood Red States
2019
PC
Auroch Digital
Driving – Combat
Users: 82% Positive, Steam


Let’s kick this off with a game I discovered this week in PCGamers Hidden Gems from 2019 article - The hidden gems of 2019 in PC gaming | PC Gamer



I enjoy driving games. I have sunk many a quarter into driver’s like Pole Position, Bump N Jump and Sky Hunter. You can even see one of the classic fighting drivers in DeathTrack in my countdown already as well as things like MaroKart.

Dark Future was a Games Workshop wargame from ’88. It was probably inspired by Car Wars from Steve Jackson. This version appears to have been influenced by the Bethesda Fallouts as well as Mad Max and others.


In this game, you are running a number of missions as part of a campaign. Each mission is locked into 10 minutes, although some can take a few minutes more if they go later into the time trial based on a mechanic below is heavily used. During that time, you will need to drive missions down the road like protect an escort, kill a number of baddies, break through a number of blockages and so forth.

The driving part takes place in four lanes and the AI will keep you at a certain speed. You use buttons to move into other lanes or speed up/down or brake/turbo boost. The AI will move you into that lane, and you can shoot weapons on your vehicle, ram for serious damage, and loads more.



Much like in Fallout where you can head to the VATS system to plan, aim, shoot, heal, and crouch, you can move into a focused mode here too. You can fire weapons, move into a few different lanes, and more, and then move off and those things will happen.



There are a number of campaigns where you unlock new cars, as well as pick up stuff along the way. Each campaign ends around 2-3 hours of missions later. Each of the campaigns has perma-death. So if you die, you are dead dead. Unless you took the second chance perk, and then you get one free death.



Now, I have a unique take on this game, due to my degenerative neurological disorder (Huntington’s Disease) of which I am 7 years into. Here’s what I posted in my Steam review yesterday:

This is the first driving game I've been able to play in the last five years. The unique driving method and Fallout ability to pause-ish and plan my moves while driving enables me to play the game. Thanks! I can see myself playing this for a long time to come.

I went and bought the soundtrack for the game, as a special thanks (it’s really good too!).


Now, to be fair, I’ve only put 8-ish hours into it so far. It’s very possible that I will change my mind later, as it’s early days. But thus far? Yup!

Drive on!

[Abe Sargent]

Honorable Mention #2 – My Singing Monsters
2013
Mobile
Big Blue Bubble
Monster Breeding



By adding a musical element to a traditional monster breeding game, Big Blue Bubble gave an existing genre a fun creative take. You have a number of monsters that will sing and play instruments with their body and thus, over time, you will assemble more and more of a song.



This is the only game in my life where I have turned it on for the music and then left it running In addition to the normal monster breeding mobile stuff by having a farm, decorations, and such, you’ll also have the ability to mute or increase and decrease the volume of certain monsters. You also have different songs on different islands, and your goal may be very different one each, with different songs:





It’s a load of fun! Now lots of folks who came back to the game have noticed how there are more ads and such now then a few years ago on release.



Shoot, I even really enjoy the loading song!



There is also a sequel prequel called Dawn of Fire that changes some stuff up, and introduces baby versions of the characters on the first map that evolve as you move them to other islands.

Sing that Monster Melody

[Abe Sargent]

Let’s do my final Honorable Mention and then I’ll move to the top 15 proper.


Honorable Mention #3 – Gorogoa
2017
Many (I played mine on the Switch)
Dev - Jason Roberts; Pub -
Puzzle





By now, if you are still on this Abe Crazy Train, you know who I am. You know what I value in a game. You know that if I have a game that’s under 10 hours but’s an amazing ride, that plays outside of normal game structures, and questions the genres, then I am going to sit up and take notice. You can see how highly I’ve rated games like To the Moon or The Stanly Parable already. Do something innovative, and well. You are going to be my lobster.



If you have played Gorogoa, then I don’t really need to waste your time with…mere writing here.



You also know that I love to give some shout outs to games mostly or singly developed by one person too, such as Banished, Front Office Football, and Plants vs Zombies.



Now sure, it’s about To the Moon in length. But what a 2-3 hours it is!


So, I won’t! Let’s do something a little different:


IGN

IGN Error 403 - Unavailable (IFW-U02)

“Gorogoa manages to say so much without uttering a single word, endowing it with a mystery that invites a more attentive, thoughtful revisit — and one that I was more than happy to accept”


PCGAMER


Gorogoa review | PC Gamer

Gorogoa is a hugely ambitious and utterly beautiful game about teasing out connections in a storybook world


Windows Central


Gorogoa for PC review: A charming and creative puzzle masterpiece | Windows Central

Gorogoa is the perfect mix of story, gameplay, and aesthetic that all come together in order to form a truly beautiful experience.


If you don’t believe me, just ask them!

[Abe Sargent]

Alright let’s get started with my list proper:

15. Home Behind
2016
PC
TPP Studio
Roguelite Survival






Home Behind is an interesting rogue-lite (as opposed to roguelike) game with a light political sensitivity to current events. You play as a refugee that walks from left to right on the screen, and things pass by. Once you have passed them, you can't ever go back, so you want to ensure you are thorough.


But the game has a built-in tension that rebels are heading your way, and if you wait too long, they will catch up to you. So, you are constantly trying to things like build stuff, explore, talk to people, and fighting that takes times off the clock. Meanwhile, the rebels are relentlessly moving behind you and taking everything over.



Now, like a Roguelite, there is just one save, you have to continue from where you start, and the RNG can be your friend or enemy. It's also a hard game on the normal mode of difficulty, and there is no (real) tutorial, you are just thrown in. But it certainly is a good game, with things to unlock and understand as you play through. Successful play through should be 6-7 hours, assuming you don't die. Unlike normal Rogue inspired games, you can restart from your previous save when you bite it. I enjoy the game and I think its well done and packaged for just 6 bucks.



The only things I would add to the game are minor nitpicks (A few key dialogues happen in pull away scenes and don’t take time off the clock, others happen on the screen and do. The further you go, the more stuff you have to craft to make crafting things, and I'd love some shortcuts so I don't have to make four ropes to turn into a heavy rope each time I need a heavy rope of something and I have the resources for the lesser ropes) . Those minor concerns aside, this is a very strong game.


The sidescrolling feature perfectly meshes with the “fleeing-your-home” theme. This game was made by two people, a married couple. Check it out!

[Abe Sargent]

As a reminder, a game series only charts once. At the end I'll publish my current Top 100 Games and I will also occasionally update the most current version of that as well. For example, I've played every Pokemon main-game as well as things from Pokemon Colosseum to XD and spin-offs like Ranger. When I post my full list later, you'll note that Shield/Sword will be my Pokemon game of choice for the entry, due to how many key changes were made to the main formula.


You also, starting with this next entry...(hint intended) may notice some series where I think they have finally hit the high note and are getting some congrats from me where before they had some flaws. Both #14 and #12 are game series that I played before, but who's recent entries really pushed them up a notch. One of which was my 2nd favorite console game of the year.

Speaking of which....

[Abe Sargent]

#14: Monster Hunter: World
2018
PS4/XB1 (I played mine on PS4)
Capcom
Action RPG




Alright, enough with the flirting! Say hello to my 2nd favorite console game of 2018. (You’ll see my top choice from 2018 in the top ten). When I saw the commercials for this game I just smiled. I felt this would be a good time to check it out on release day.



We’ve had a whole series of Monster Hunter games. I still own my PS2 copy of the first game. But that game… It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good. It just was. There was the online aspect which wasn’t done well. Some of the gameplay, like the limited number of quests, wasn’t great. Some of it was strong and you enjoyed. It’s Metacritic score was 68, so I clearly wasn’t the only one that was underwhelmed by it.

Capcom was learning how to make an actual Monster Hunter game. You’ll note that the Metacritic score keeps rising. Tri? 79. Four? 86. World? 90 (for my PS4 version).


As you can see, my perceptions of an increasing quality in the game series have increased over time is in line with the Critics as well. I enjoy the fact that it never become another 1st person clone (such as Fallout), it’s still 3rd person perspective. They’ve figured out the multiplayer part of the game more, you have your quests at the New World, and lots more. The quest tree has been renovated.


Also, please note that while there are some paid in-game purchase options, those are only for cosmetic changes, like new cloths with no gaming ability, and no loot boxes. Just as an FYI. There’s nothing not to like here!



Now, to be fair, a recent DLC, Iceborne has come out, and I haven’t picked it up. So, just as an FYI, I cannot speak to any changes from that DLC. But there you are!


Who wants to Hunt for Monsters?

[Abe Sargent]

#13. Surviving Mars
2018
Many (I played mine on PC)
Haemimont Games
Strategy/Sim – City-Building



This game surprised a lot by becoming the first of a Surviving series published by Paradox. As you may recall, I don’t give you the publisher, just the creator. Did you know that Haemimont is Bulgaria’s largest game company at around 60 employees!



In Surviving Mars you are setting up a colony at Mars, along with some other people at bases you can trade (or steal) from. There are two stages. The first is before people land. You are grabbing lighter resources from robots that don’t require people, like myomers. You are building up an infrastructure of energy and food and such. Once you have everything set up, you build your first dome. Then you build some homes, places of employment and relaxation, inside the building. Then? Sit back and wait. Once they’ve arrived they can mine more expensive and better resources and you will slowly expand across the area.



Then you’ll need to manage the aspect of colony management, from mental health, research stuff, survive disasters, and you’ll have missions with various requirement such as sending out 10 doctors. Sound like fun? It is!




Please note that I do consider the terraforming DLC Green Planet to be an essential part of a complete breakfast. Having missions to change the planet, and seeing your colony shift over time is incredible. See a review for it here: Surviving Mars: Green Planet review | Rock Paper Shotgun




Are you ready to Survive some Mars?

[Abe Sargent]

I had an interview yesterday for a job at CU and it took much of my day to prepare for it, I'll get tyou caught up in a moment

[Abe Sargent]

#12. Endless Space #2
2017
PC/MAC
Amplitude Studios
Strategy/Simulation - 4x



My favorite modern take of the space 4x games inspired by MOO. I like it best because of one major feature – its factions are different. Consider something like Civilizations. In the Civ tradition, here are the differences between factions:

Faction #1 gets a small boost to production or a minor combat boost to army units. They also get one or two unique units that replace a normal one and are a tiny bit better, and one or two buildings that do the same.
Faction #2 gets a small boost to production or a minor combat boost to army units. They also get one or two unique units that replace a normal one and are a tiny bit better, and one or two buildings that do the same


They neither play nor feel different. They are basically all the same nation, and you play them the same, every time.


However last Civilization (V) there was a Venice, which played very differently. After you set up your initial city that was it and you couldn’t settle more cities. But you had additional diplomatic options with city states and could really help to bring them under your influence. It played very differently that the rest of the civs. My hope that that Civ VI would become a group of Venices, each playing and valuing different things. Venice needed to keep city states alive where as others may have sought to take them. But that style of gaming was mostly abandoned later rather than embraced.



But in Endless Space 2, every faction is Venice and has different goals, quests, missions, heroes, weaknesses. One (the Nakalim) represent the lost remnant of a fallen empire that begins the game with a bunch of extra technologies! But it can’t trade for techs or do research and will need to find relics and aim for a galactic university system. One slower plant-like creature (The Unfallen) cannot move into a system and bring it under its control until its seed ships have connected it with an intergalactic root system, which takes a lot longer than other worlds to set up. If you find you have the Husk on your border in the early game, it will be quite different than the crazy scientist Sophons, or this guy who cloned himself enough times to be considered his own race. These are real, realistic, restrictions that also play into a different way each species sees the game.



That’s why it’s my favorite of the modern cycle of 4x. Each faction has different goals, and different ways of building. I have played them all, and my favorite is the Unfallen that are slow starters, but can build bigger planets and ecosystems, so they are slower early game, but stronger late.



If you are looking for a traditional, old-school 4X in the Master of Orion style of gaming, there are a lot of great options! And this is mine.

[Abe Sargent]

#11. Slay the Spire
2017
Many
MegaCrit
Roguelike Card-Building




Now I want to be honest with you. I love me a good Roguelike game. Games like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, Tales of Maj’Eyal, Angband, Zangband, Moria, and many more have been there for me. They’ve done it. They good! I have spent roughly 30 hours early in my single digit life playing the original Rogue. I know it. I love it. Rogue influenced games like Sunless Sea, Home Behind above and many more are typically going to hit really high for me. I like them. I like them like them.



Meanwhile I don’t like Dominion and other card building board games. I find them overrated. There’s too much of a metagame involved, not enough winning. I find dice builders like Quarriors to be more grokkable and faster games as they have ways to win the game while tossing dice. But I’m not in love with Q. I certainly am not in any form of consideration of Dominion.


However, I don’t mind card building in games like Culdcept, Star Chamber, Card City Nights or a game that will hit higher on this list where it makes sense.


So here’s the key question. Where do I find it in Slay the Spire?


Slay the Spire:



The RPG dungeon aspect? Great, love it! I enjoy the characters like the Ironclad relic-ness. I also really like the mechanic of seeing what my enemy is going to do next turn, as I haven’t seen that before. I’m not sure if that was unique to this game, or something that others have done that I forgot about or haven’t played.


The rpg part? Great!



Deckbuilding? Meh. It doesn’t suck! It’s not a 1 or a 2 out of ten! But it ain;t something that sells me. It reminds me of KOTOR 1. Amazing story, world building, and characters! Bad gameplay. Super easy, the 3rd edition rules set didn’t evoke what being a Jedi was about, or that world building. It wasn’t this big, giant hit, to my mind, and it hit my low 100s. If you loved it, great! I never could, but I like it okay as an average overall. This is the same. Parts love! Parts, I don’t.

Given how hard a roguelike is supposed to be, the random card drawing element, even from a deck I built, doesn’t work for me. I don’t like getting kicked back down the tower for it. These two don’t mesh well, in theory, as well as reality.

I don’t dislike a rogue game when I die after running up against a powerful out of depth monster or a group of monsters that I could normally defeat simply but I took for granted. I could have done the combat differently, or fled. I learned something. I became better with that death.

Result? It hits back here behind my Top 10.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

[b]#13. Surviving Mars

I've been tempted by this game more than once, never been able to pull the trigger.

How's the replayability of it? I've felt like it could get very samey same once you figure out the trick(s).

[Brian Swartz]

That's what I've heard as well. What I've been told is it's a more casual builder, but not something that has any enduring challenge once you know the basics - even on the hardest possible difficulty, worst possible landing site, etc. Nothing wrong with a casual game …

… but it is called Surviving Mars. So I always thought it should actually be potentially difficult to, you know, survive in such a game

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

It reminds me of KOTOR 1. Amazing story, world building, and characters! Bad gameplay.

Heresy! Heresy, I say!!

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I've been tempted by this game more than once, never been able to pull the trigger.

How's the replayability of it? I've felt like it could get very samey same once you figure out the trick(s).

Each faction has some distinctness to them. Some like China really want to have as many people as possible while others care more about techs. I have later in the game had some mishaps, lie running out of a precious resource on the map and then being forced to order it from Earth for a high, high cost.


Resources are used for a weekly upkeep of your buildings by your bots. Everything from batteries to store energy to your tons of energy making things like solar panels, as well as things in domes, pipes, water, air, etc.


I've replayed it through three times, and once I just kept playing after getting 100% on all habitability ratings for terraforming Mars and I removed my domes, and built without them. It was pretty nifty and cool.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

That's what I've heard as well.



Heresy! Heresy, I say!!

It's not a heresy. I think, for a long time, we had really, really bad Star Wars games that they were blinded by the fact that this game wasn't a great....game. For example, in my first play-through, I beat it without reloading once.

[Abe Sargent]

#10. Detroit: Become Human
2018
PS4/PC (I played mine on PS4)
Quantic Dream
Action/Adventure




Here is my favorite console game in 2018!

This felt like sci-fi with heart and purpose, like Robocop, also set in future Detroit. Big giant script? Lots of points? Dark story that leads somewhere? Sure! This isn't some fanciful story like I Robot, its realistically gritty.





The game works very, very well. The various aspect are great. There's more moral choices. Kind of like Fallout 1 & 2 , but not 3 & 4 where you re forced into being a good person in your dialogue and other places.




Now I am a little surprised by he mixed reviews. I just researched it and some reviewers like PC Gamer really weren't fans of the game, and I'm a little surprised by it's Metacritic score of %78.



I don;t know why. Not fans of a lot of talking in their games? Maybe they want more fights and less world building? Want a dumb shooter? Insert Call of Duty here?

Now to be fair to DBH, it's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But it was definitely my favorite console game of it's release year, and it's cracking my top 10!


What are your thoughts? Where do you fall?

[Izulde]

I personally really like Detroit: Become Human, because I love Quantic Dream. That said, the plot is just a rehash/borrowing of other stories. There was also a considerable amount of backlash against the corporate culture at QD and several commenters remarked that there's some disturbing trends that keep coming up in Cage's work that hint at potential creeper or rapey personality.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Izulde

I personally really like Detroit: Become Human, because I love Quantic Dream. That said, the plot is just a rehash/borrowing of other stories. There was also a considerable amount of backlash against the corporate culture at QD and several commenters remarked that there's some disturbing trends that keep coming up in Cage's work that hint at potential creeper or rapey personality.

Yeah, maybe, but I can't get caught to much in that. I look at games! If I havean EA Sports game, with a giant crush, I may not be happy with it, and I may call it out, but it will never affect my score, you know?

[Abe Sargent]

#9. Frostpunk
2018
11 bit studios
PS4/XB1/PC
Simulation - City Building (Post-Apocalyptic)




I really enjoy city-builders, survival builders, post-apocalyptic games, and games that do something new. Given those four things...you knew Frostpunk would be here somewhere. Where was really the only question in this conversation.





In this game you are dealing with a steampunk setting where the world has gone darkly cold, and it doesn't look like things are coming back. You are all dying. It's that cold.




Along the way you are going to need to make some decisions. Child labor to help keep the adults from overworking? What will they do? What about medical things? Try to amputate and give them useful attachments to get them back to work quickly? Or try and keep them alive, which will take way too much precious time, but will give you a fit worker at the end?



Darkpunk is here, and it's a little frosty.


This is also a fun builder where you are sending your group out there for provisions, finding things to make shelter out of, and a lot more. Build automatons! Have fun! Finish the game in under 10 hours!



There are a few non-essential expansions that add some new scenarios to the game. A new one comes out next week.

After getting This War of Mine into my top 100 last time, will Frost Punk make it in this one? I don;t know, but you'll see my current Top 100 after this!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

#9. Frostpunk
2018
11 bit studios
PS4/XB1/PC
Simulation - City Building (Post-Apocalyptic)

Another "I've been so tempted" game, with the same "but is it replayable" concerns. Another game I've heard criticized for being "figure out the formula" styled.

Have you played the Endless mode? And if so does it work well for replayability?

[Brian Swartz]

I haven't played Endless on Frostpunk, but I played it at release quite a bit. It is quite formulaic. The scenarios are different enough to throw some variety in there, and there are different paths in terms of laws etc. that do so as well, but none of that affects the core basics which are a thing where you find the right way to do it.

Really I think that's a thing that is pretty much just the way games that have city-builder elements work, and I think it's worth the investment but people looking for a more varied experience are probably better off looking elsewhere.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Another "I've been so tempted" game, with the same "but is it replayable" concerns. Another game I've heard criticized for being "figure out the formula" styled.

Have you played the Endless mode? And if so does it work well for replayability?

Great question! I haven't played it yet, because I'm waiting until the expansion comes back and then I;ll grab it and check it out.


Abe

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I haven't played Endless on Frostpunk, but I played it at release quite a bit. It is quite formulaic. The scenarios are different enough to throw some variety in there, and there are different paths in terms of laws etc. that do so as well, but none of that affects the core basics which are a thing where you find the right way to do it.

Really I think that's a thing that is pretty much just the way games that have city-builder elements work, and I think it's worth the investment but people looking for a more varied experience are probably better off looking elsewhere.

Yup! And you'll get that from games like Oxygen Not Included, Banished, and more all the way back to Alexandria and Rome and more.

Now Frostpunk is a great game, but it is a fast play. If you put ten hours into your first city, I'd be surprised. That's why it's here at 9 for me. There are some builders that I liked better that hit higher as there is more time for the dollar.

[Abe Sargent]

#8. Thea: The Awakening
2015
PC
MuHa Games
RPG & City-Building

Welcome to Thea! In this game you are building up a city civilization style in a post-fantasy apocalyptic world with orcs and others long after the world collapsed, but the world tree has begun to show signs of restoring light to the world, figuratively and literally. You can’t move your city elsewhere or build more, so make real sure to protect it well, because it’s be attacked.



In this game, based on Slavic mythology, you are one of the old gods that has come back in a…form…sorta. You choose your god, and as you do, you follow their story line. At the end of the game, you will have unliked abilities for your god for subsequent replays, or other Gods to use. There are some distant aspects, and each God can win. There are three separate ways to win the game, restore light, turn to darkness, or leave as it and the creatures of shadow like orcs will continue to thrive. When I play as Svarog I embrace light, as he is the God of Sun, and when I play as the super nice Lada, god of birth and love, I chose instead to leave things as is. I’d rather not kill.



If you have the Giants expansion, then after you beat the game, you will ally with the faction you chose, and you are going to track down the Giants and take out their rise and adventure in your world.




There is a combat card system in Thea which is pretty gettable. You look to put your cards first, as those will attack first and there are some abilities that will move your dorks up first, and such. Any damage your characters sustain will carry over to future battles unless healed with items or rest.




Now, unlike Slay the Spire, in this game you can autoresolve combat, and not worry about fighting again. You can also find non-combat ways to resolve situations if you have scouts or diplomats or magic users in your party. It’ll still use the card-fighting mechanism, but you won’t sustain injuries or lose anything in the transition.



There is a sequel, and it’s okay, maybe a 6 out of 10.



Thea on!

[Abe Sargent]

#7. Cities: Skylines
2015
Many (I have mine on PC)
Colossal Order
Simulation – City-Building


Hello folks!



Let’s digress for a moment. Cities here is the first of three games that evoke older games on my countdown, so I want to pause and discuss that nature in lists like these.


Many games have elements similar to competitors or prior games. Roller Coaster Tycoon was not the first theme park in game form. It’s the gold standard today, but I was playing bullfrogs Theme Park before with it’s massive vomit fest.



SimCity, early days was great. I enjoyed it. It was a very outside-the-box game, and shows what happens when a develop makes a game for themselves rather than for sales. Will Wright enjoyed making the cities for others to use in his first video game, so he made that a game. And the result was fire meeting water as you had a game that one could never win.



SC had a number of sequels and spin offs, and other ideas, like going to the future, and then adding in regions in 4. 4, way back in 2003, was the last good SC game of any type from them. After Maxis was purchased by EA, the number of interests Sim variants decreased, and their surprise hit The Sims was massively digitized with countless similar iterations, expansions, and such that never to price reductions or bundling even years later.

From 2003 until 2007 when the disaster that was Sim City Societies popped out. I played it. Yuck.




Not a lot of movement on the game occurred for while as more focus went The Sims’s way. Then we got Sim City always online multiplayer game in 2013 with its disastrous launch with metacritic assembling it a user rating of 2.0 out of TEN. The last good SC game was 2003. Seventeen years ago.



A small Finnish studio, Colossal Order, which just 16 total employees at the time, with publisher Paradox, set out to how easy making a studio was. With a much smaller budget, number of people, and development cycle, in 2015 Cities Skylines debuted and it was clearly the SC that could and should have been. Radio stations? Massive support of mods? It’s just so much fun, and it’s been Paradox’s biggest game by far. It’s Metacritic user score is 8.5. Despite Paradox working a number of titles, this has been it’s best selling title of all time. It also debuted for half the price of SimCity.



And now let’s back up. SimCity is at 18 on my Top 100 games of all time. Does Cities hit? Where? If not….why?

[Brian Swartz]

FYI none of your links to the other top games threads work for me. Just takes me to the 'Main Forums' forum screen.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

FYI none of your links to the other top games threads work for me. Just takes me to the 'Main Forums' forum screen.

Sorry about that, that was weird. They should work now though. Can you double check and make sure and let me know? Thanks!


Abe

[Brian Swartz]

Yep, it is working now.

[Abe Sargent]

Let's do #6 and #5 back to back....you'll see why.


That will put us with three to go, and you;ll have my choice for the best console game I played, best mobile game, and best PC game. Which ones will fall?

[Abe Sargent]

#6. Planet Coaster
2016
PC
Frontier Development
Strategy/Sim – Tycoon Game



So let’s get started with my back-to-back. I had already talked of the context of RCT vs Theme Park in my Cities review above. Roller Coaster Tycoon was a big, giant, unexpected hit. It put the Tycoon genre on the map in a major way. Sure, you did have some things prior like Theme Park, Railroad Tycoon, and Transport Tycoon. Chris Sawyer had made Transport Tycoon himself and published with MicroProse. He had developed a reputation for solo-games, and he made RCT in 1999 and broke everyone’s face with how massively popular and surprise of a hit it was. It was a big casual hit with kids, families, moms, etc. It was the best selling PC game of 1999, and it came out in the middle of the year. In 2000? It was the second best selling game after The Sims, which also blew the door off of who began buying games. Before RCT2’s release it had more than 6 million sales. 2 was an iteration of 1, not a true sequel.



Then came the first iteration of RCT,, 3. Developed by Frontier, not Chris Sawyer. It wanted to invest you in a full, rich, 3d experience, that was pretty, but had some bugs under the scenes, like path making, and similar aspects that were common issues in the early game of 3d design in 2004 when it was released. 16 years ago. But the game was well done, and showed that Frontier knew how to make this style of game. They had done the expansion packs for RCT2 as well. They also did Thrill Ville while folks were waiting for another RCT. They also began publishing their title as well, as things slowed down.


Then Roller Coaster World was released in 2016 to disastrous ramifications. Metacritic? 43/100. User score? 25/100.

Yuck. It was a disaster.

Know what wasn’t? The spiritual successor of the franchise, Planet Coaster. They had a love and established connection to this going back to RCT2’s expansions. Them coming in and stepping up to the plate showed what Atari in their mad scramble for cash had forgotten, despite early negative press. They could have pushed the game back. Figured out the issues. NOPE!

Boom when RCT’s name and cachet, at least for the moment.



And Planet Coaster has stepped into that gap willingly without pausing to look behind. It is an amazing game. Smooth, good economics, fun décor, and more. The entire engine purrs like a gentle snow kitty. It’s the first major modern gaming experience from a theme park angle. Much like Colossal Order had only made city-builders prior to Cities Skylines, they had made RCTs expansions, RCT3, it’s expansions Thrillville, Jurassic Park Evolution, ScreamRide, and loads more. This was their passion and bread and butter, and they stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park when RCT World failed.





Another powerful aspect here? This is a big game for Millennials, who love creative games. By giving theme park builders the raw tools to make things, they have the ability to make……..lots of things. They have amazing roller coasters that are epic in size and scale, and more. As of right now, there are 286,597 items on their workshop page alone.


Take a look at just some of the designs here on a random youtube video series I’ve linked you too.


And my final question from C:S above; where does this hit, if at all? RCT is currently at 35 in my list. Where does Planco fall?


And now, #5. And then I’ll see you tomorrow!

[Abe Sargent]

#5. Planet Zoo
2019
PC
Frontier Development
Strategy/Sim – Tycoon Game



Now let’ talk about Zoo Tycoon.

After RCT’s success, there were a big, fat, number of games that wanted a part of it’s sweet pie and success. Top Selling game in 1999, and 2nd most the year later is crazy money. Many of them were of varying value and quality.




I consider Zoo Tycoon the best. Seeing how many families were buying RCT, Zoo Tycoon was released with educational content about animals, and it was released in 2001 with enough development time to have an actual well-designed game.


The initial game was developed by Blue Fang Studios and put out by…MicroSoft. Not MicroProse or others, but the giant XBOX god itself. It was independent at the time. Zoo Tycoon came out after RCT2, and looked like that game. It also learned from that game, and was quite good on it’s own, with a smooth engine and four expansions.



Similarly, Zoo Tycoon 2 came out after RCT3 as it was a smoother 3d experience, with sahara inspired jeep lines, and great 1st person zooms into the park. It was a great game, and it also had another quartet of expansions.


And then? Nothing!


And then Zoo Tycoon 2013 came out, solely for Xbox360. They turned to a developer they trusted, Frontier Developments, cough cough. As a company that did RCT3 and parts of, 2 and Thrillville, you can see why. Did they have a big hit on their hands? Nope!

Why not?



Because it turns out that MicroSoft can be just as hard to work with as a publisher as EA or (modern) Atari. Huh. Imagine that. They had too many demands, the crunch was bad, and more. So the result was a mixed bag of….meh.



Metacritic? 68 (User 3.1) It wasn’t bad, and it was the best-rated of the killers (RCT World, Sim City). But it wasn’t the game they wanted to make.


Until this year. Now it’s at 8.1, with a user at 8.1 too.



Unlike Planet Coaster or Cities Skylines, which are merely modern and great iterations on existing games, Planet Zoo pushes waaaaay past Zoo Tycoon. Each animal has personalities and need different things. They tire of the same toy and need new ones. You can breed them and look for others to breed with. If you aren’t careful, you might inbreed some animals. Some animals are breed-a-sauruses like the Galapagos Turtles (I call them the Sex Turtles ‘cause they get it on), while others are hard to get to breed, like Pandas. Each animal is rated on things like appeal and birthing.


You can release folks to the wild, and based on how endangered they are, it’ll be worth more conversation credits to you, which you use on buying new species. You have loads of staff, from vets that need a big vet clinic, to groundskeepers who clean up the animal feces, and more. You’ll need quarantine pens too.


One of the main ways to get money is via donation boxes at the exhibits, so you want to have as realistic an exhibit as possible to increase their experience while also trying to find ways to maximize the viewer experience too.


They also have smaller kiosks for animals like bugs, smaller reptiles that wouldn’t want a big exhibit.


You have to control power, water, heater or chillers for those animals that need them, and more. You’ll want nice lavish education boards and speakers.

And like Planet Coaster above, there are loads of tools that you can use to make your own stuff. This was released later in November, 2019, but we already have 22k items.


How many hours have I put in Planet Coaster? 82. Planet Zoo? 164 To be fair, I also beta-tested Planet Zoo too, so those hours count that play as well, but you get the idea.


Therefore, in summation, Planet Zoo is more better than Zoo Tycoon at it’s best than Planet Coaster was of it’s predecessors. Make sense?

Great!

[Abe Sargent]

What do the following game companies have in common?



Solecismic Games
Klei Entertainment
Frontier Games
Paradox Software


Not sure? That’s fine! They are the only (video) game makers for whom I am invested enough that I have an account on their forum and actively post there. I have posted on all four multiple times in 2020.

[Abe Sargent]

What do the following games have in common.


Dark Future: Blood Red States
Megaquarium
Arcade Tycoon
Planet Zoo
Star Control: Origins
Flotsam
Hollywood Mogul 3


All of these games took suggestions I made from place like their forums or Discord and made changes to the game based on that feedback. In some cases, it was minor (Megaquarium’s one change) in some cases they added a lot (Arcade Tycoon). Nothing else, not even Front Office Football.

[rjolley]

Abe, have you played Parkitect? If so, how does it compare to Planet Coaster and RCT?

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by rjolley

Abe, have you played Parkitect? If so, how does it compare to Planet Coaster and RCT?

Great question!

I really likeit, and I have just a few fewer hours in it than Planco. It's more of a 2d throwback RCT style game, with a more robust economic system than Planco but a smaller number of rides. (Not bad though). If you are looking for a quick, 2 hour play through of some scenarios or a park that you are working on Parkitect is great for that. If you want a deeper, more immerse park builder with more rides, better AI for your peops, more pretty stuff, etc, then Planco is more likely your oyster.


It's been out for a year longer than Planet Zoo and has half of the workshop items, as one example.


Immersion vs Diversion.


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyI...R9ru19bAWCUiug

Geekisms's "Creative Gaming for Grown-Ups" features a lot of let's play on both as he loves them both. He is the only "let's play" I subscribe too. That;s where I found out about Megaquarium and Overload.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

Geekims's "Creative Gaming for Grown-Ups" features a lot of let's play on both as he loves them both.

I'll give that one a go. I've usually got room for one more as there seems to be a steady ebb & flow my list of regular LP'ers.

[rjolley]

Thanks for the head's up. I have Planet Coaster and it's a bit more than I want right now. I'll check out that channel and will probably give Parkitect a try soon.

And to help others a bit, the channel is Geekism. Slight typo above.

[Abe Sargent]

#4. BattleTech
2018
PC/OSX
Harebrained Schemes
Strategy – Turn Based Movement


Alright let’s do it!



Let’s begin today’s review with a simple question. How many hours on Steam have I logged into my many deep post-game runs on BattleTech since it was released about 20 months ago in April 2018. 382 hours. That is, for the record, more than my play of:

Banished – 182 hours
Football Manager 19 – 117 hours as well as every other version of FM, save for
Blood Bowl II – 148 hours
Cities Skylines – 139 hours
Craft the World – 134 hours
Star Control Origins 75 hours
Stardew Valley – 351 hours
My #1 game below at 201 hours
Surviving Mars at 69 hours
Tales of Maj-Eyal 154 hours
Fallout 4 – 204 hours
Fallout New Vegas – 105 hours
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 – 97 hours
Any Civ? None more than 46 hours
The Sims 3? (My favorite version) 46 hours
Space Pirates and zombies – 78 hours
Tropico 3 was the one with the most time at 97 hours


The only games with more hours? Don’t Starve (740 hours, I love that game) and Eu 3 & 4. And Fm 16 was the only one with more, but FM is a game I tend to keep open and come back toso I think that number is inflated. Not Crusader Kings 2! Not Victoria II! Just THREE Games, and I’ve had this one for fewer than 2 years. That’s means I’ve played a lot of big stompy robots.



So, let’s talk about it!


Turn based movement? Check! I love it as a way to deal with battle, from the XCOM franchise to winners like Heroes of Might and Magic, the Jagged Alliance series, and loads more!



Small Number of Things? Check! I really enjoy games where I’ve not moving 15 things around the map. I’m generally not going to the biggest fan of a mechanic with bigger turn movement movement if I have giant squad of 20 dorks to move around. XCom’s later missions can take a whole lot longer as you add more and more dorks into your squad, and get bigger ships to transport them in as well.



Difficult Economic Management? Yup! You can pull out of a mission before you finish it, which you may want to do if you are losing it, or even winning it but about to lose some metal. In this era, life is cheap, mechs aren’t. The economic aspects can be difficult to deal with. You could easily have a monthly cost of 600k per month for your ship, units, and dorks. And it can take 2 weeks to move from one system to a nearby one to see if you can find contracts. Each planet may only have a few, and some plants won’t have any, like those abandoned worlds out there. If it was easy being a mercenary, anyone could do it.

https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/battl...05220235_1.png

Since release it’s added some free updates with new mechs, as well as many new mechs in DLCs. It’s added city maps, new terrain, and lots of quality of life upgrades. It’s better than many other BattleTech games, in my opinion, and I ….loves it. As you can see above!



Do you?

[Abe Sargent]

#3. The Last of Us
2014
PS3
Naughty Dog
Action, Survival - Horror




We don’t always play games organically. So far in 2020, I’ve played Steam games alone like Megaquarium, Stardew Valley, Big Pharma, Dark Future, and in December I dipped into Battletech and Planet Zoo and loads more. You get the idea. We don’t always play games as soon as they are released, so sometimes we find an older game that works.




In this case? The original The Last of Us. I had heard about the sequel's delays, bur I had never even heard of the first game. I grabbed it to try it out prior to The Last of Us part 2 coming out in 2020.





There are two branches of survival games out there. The first is horror, and it was popularized by games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil. It has fighting, jump-cuts, and more. I’d argue that HalfLife 1 has a lot of these elements to it as well. It was distributed and sold as a First-Person Shooter, but creatures like the Headcrab have more horror elements to them, and you are just trying to escape.






That genre of survival is okay. Some folks love it. Some folks love cheap horror films with rotten tomato scores of 18% and go to them religiously at the theater. For people who enjoy that experience, I am not going to diss them or their stuff. But I find the modern overreliance on jump-scares and cheap thrills over atmosphere and mood (in both games and movies) to be one I have no desire to push myself into for most of the product.





The other type of “survival” game tends to be one like Don’t Starve, The Oregon Trail, or The Forest, where you are trying to find food, shelter, water, and get the stuff needed to not die. This could have city-building elements like Surviving the Aftermath or base building like the afore mentioned Don’t Starve, or just moving and staying out of the way of night and it’s deadly cold embrace in the great north. This style of survival I love. And DS is, in my opinion, the best game at doing so, which is why it’s my 2nd most played Steam game of all time after EU4.



The problem with The Last of Us for me, is that its in the wrong subgenre. I prefer the latter to the former. However, The Last of Us really transcends the genre.





You know how much I enjoy games that push a genre rather than were iterative but popular. Take First Person Shooters. I don’t have Doom and Halo here, but I do I have Half-Life and Wolfenstein 3D, the games that changed the genre. Doom didn’t do anything W3D didn’t already do. Halo the same with Half-Life. They didn’t try to push their genre forward. Popular titles that could have been anything anywhere. Do something new.





Enter The Last of Us. Third person helps to build the world and be different, the world building is amazingly well done, and the game mechanics line up perfectly with the story. It's more about humanity than a traditional game in it's genre. The result is a game that I missed the firs time, but I am making up for it now. Technically it was like 5.5 years ago. If you don’t like it, this is my list. Go play in someone else’s (joke intended)

[Brian Swartz]

FWIW I would also generally recommend Geekism. Gets a bit pigheaded if a game pushes the wrong buttons, but is otherwhise really high-quality IMO.

[Abe Sargent]

#2. Pokemon: Go
2016
Mobile Game
Niantic
Augmented Reality



No mobile game has changed us like this game has. It pushed onto the collective fabric a number of new ways of gaming. While other games may have hewed into this territory, Pokemon Go remade it. Less than two weeks after launch, Nintendo’s stock price had doubled.


I can remember one night that myself a few fellow Pokemon gamer student staff that were down in Mobile. We had finished RA training, and afterwords, several of us went to a local Pier that you could walk up and down, and had some stores, a pair of restaurants, and a marina. It was crowded. I asked a local worker at one of the stores about the crowds, and she told me that it usually wasn’t this crowded, but after the release of Pokemon Go, it had picked up a lot. There was a Pokegym here over the marina.



People were advertising that there were stops and Gyms and more by their cafe or their library. It increased walking, jogging and biking massively. It just wasn’t a hit. People just weren’t sitting at home playing a game. They were walking around. I remember college students taking weekend trips to local mountains to get rock and ground pokemon that were rare in the Mobile Bay. They would head out and explore the world. Now sure, they did so tethered to their mobile device. But they went.




This game wasn’t just a surprise hit. It changed how people were living their lives. I myself would be like, hey, let’s walk to the local store or around campus for an hour to see what I could find. Within a month it was the most popular mobile game ever in the US. There were many events and more for the game at places like the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium.

Stores would drop Lures to bring in business, particularly from foot traffic. You know you have something when lots of people start to ban it, take a fatwa against it, call it satanic, and more. From a Pokemon themed kids game.



There’s nothing I can say about it that you don’t know. It has capturing, raising, and fighting at Gyms. And that’s pretty much it. Now if you feel that somehow it’s not a game because you can’t win (you can’t win SimCity or The Sims either) or you are just gathering them and raising them and thus shouldn’t be here. I don’t remember that sort of push-back against Nintendogs or other games where you just raised a virtual pet. It seems to play into that same space. You get benefits when your team has gyms, so there is an in-game incentive to capture gyms from others and fight.


Welcome to life in a post-Pokemon Go world!

[Abe Sargent]

Ready for my top game?


I doubt it’ll surprise………anyone really who knows me.



#1. Stellaris
2016
Many
Paradox Software
Strategy – 4X, Grand Strategy




No surprises here! We already had two Paradox grand strategy games (Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis) make my top 20.



Let’s look at the most unusual iteration of Paradox’s method of game-making. Typically they really want to invest in historical sagas and epics, that let you play in history’s grandeur. Revel in trying to deal with the White Lotus Rebellion in China or maneuver the many pitfalls of history.



But this is very different space. They took inspiration in their universe crafting by looking at things like Babylon 5, Larry Niven, Arthur C. Clarke, Star Trek, among countless others. Inspired by many great hard science fiction works and media, the game combines a big number of them, from Fallen Empires (like B5’s The Shadows and The Vorlons) who will use you as pawns in their own grand strategy game, or game-ending crises events.




You can turn into cyberpeople in the game, or embrace psionics as a race. You can improve in genetics and design a better race for particular worlds that your people may not normally be able to deal with. You create you own species from tons of possible options, embrace various social aspects, and create your government.




Then deal a population that won’t always do what you want. They may want to push for a harder military bent after your first war. You’ll have political factions in your empire that will spring up. Based on your key cultures you can embrace other aliens and welcome them, or enslave them for the betterment of your people. Want to be a hive-mind? A gestalt consciousness instead?




It’s your game. Destroy everyone else, or make them your vassals. Create a federation. Win by colonizing (or conquering) a ton of worlds. Did you find some lesser species? You can set yourself up as their god, gene-splice them into better forms, or just do a Federation watch and learn. Or you can destroy them while they are weak and take their (likely) strong world for yourself.


The early game of exploration with it’s science vessels is great, and the DLC that adds relic worlds and archeological digs is awesome. You can also get economic empires like corporations and more from another DLC. Build a giant Dyson Sphere and Ring Worlds. Build a fleet that even a fallen empire must respect.


It’s all yours for the taking.


Or you can die miraculously!

[Abe Sargent]

And my top 100 current list, updated for you as of... 7 minutes ago.


Enjoy!



Top 100 Games of All Time

Honorable Mention:

Papers, Please - PC - Puzzle Sim.
Robot Odyssey - Apple II - Adventure - Educational
BattleTech VR - BattleTech Center - Action/Simulation - Mecha
Mortal Kombat, Arcade, Fighting
Star Fox - SNES - Action
Super Smash Bros. - GameCube, Fight
The Stanley Parable - PC- ???
Pole Position, Arcade - Driving
Bump N Jump - Arcade - Driving
Star Chamber - PC - MMO Strategy
Bully - PS2 - Action/Adventure - Thug
Monster Hunter: World - PS4/XB1 - Action RPG
Pool of Radiance - PC - RPG

[Abe Sargent]

100. Donkey Kong - Coin-Op - Action - Platform
99. Adventure - Atari - Action/Adventure
98. Wishbringer - PC - Adventure - Interactive Fiction
97. Commando - Commodore 64 - Action Run N' Gun
96. Super Mario Brothers, NES, Platformer
95. Bravely Default - 3DS - RPG
94. NHL Hockey - Intellivision - Sports - Hockey
93. Knights of the Old Republic - XBox - RPG
92. Planescape: Torment - PC - RPG
91. Pong, Casual
90. Evil Genius - PC - Strategy
89. Battletech - PC - Strategy
88. Goldeneye 007 - N64 - Action - FPS/Stealth
87. Cities: Skylines - PC - Simulation - City Building
86. Ninja Gaiden - NES - Action - Platform, Combat
85. Overlord - XBOX 360 - Action/RPG
84. Contra - NES - Action Run N' Gun
83. Bejeweled - PC - Puzzle
82. Planet Coaster AND Planet Zoo - PC - Strategy/Sim
81. Nine Doors, Nine Persons, Nine Hours - DS - Adventure Horror
80. Wolfenstein 3D - PC - First Person Shooter
79. Military Madness - TurboGrafx - Strategy - Wargame
78. The World Ends With You, 3DS - RPG
77. To the Moon - PC - Adventure
76. Scorched Earth - PC - Strategy - Tank
75. Deathtrack - PC - Action/Simulation - Racing
74. Oregon Trail II - PC - Adventure - Educational
73. Sunless Sea - PC - Roguelike Adventure
72. Guitar Hero - PS2 - Rhythm
71. Grand Theft Auto III - PS2 - Action - Thug
70. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - GBA/DS - Adventure
69. Command and Conquer - PC - Strategy - Real-Time
68. Sid Meier's Pirates! - Commodore 64 - Action/Simulation
67. This War of Mine - PC - Survival
66. Soul Calibur II - GC/PS2/XBOX - Action - Fighting
65. MarioParty 5 - GameCube - Strategy/Action - Party Game
64. Tetris - PC - Puzzle
63. Dungeon Keeper - PC - Strategy
62. Triple Action - Intellivision - Action
61. StarCraft - PC - Strategy - Real Time
60. Jagged Alliance 2 - PC - Strategy
59. The Last of Us - PS3 - Action/Survival Horror
58. Sea Rogue - PC - RPG/Action/Adventure/Strategy
57. Archon: The Light and The Dark - Atari 8 Bit Computer - Action/Strategy
56. Pillars of Eternity - PC - RPG
55. Metroid - NES - Action/Adventure - Platform
54. Life is Strange, FPS Action
53. Sid Meier's SimGolf - PC - Action/Simulation - Sports/Economic
52. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, PS1 - Action/RPG - Platform
51. Plants vs Zombies - PC - Tower Defense
50. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat - PC - Action/Simulation - Mecha
49. Lakers versus Celtics - PC - Sports - Basketball
48. Street Fighter II - SNES - Action - Fighting
47. Mario Brothers - Coin-Operated - Action - Platform
46. NFL Football - Intellivision - Sports - Football
45. Pac-Man - Coin-Operated - Action
44. Railroad Tycoon 3 - PC - Strategy/Simulation - Economic
43. Mega Man 2 - NES - Action - Platform
42. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans - PC - Strategy - Real-Time
41. Fallout - PC - RPG
40. Metal Gear - NES - Action/Adventure - Stealth
39. Utopia - Intellivision - Strategy/Simulation - Real Time/God Game
38. Stardew Valley - PC - Simulation
37. Katamari Damacy - PS2 - Action
36. Super Mario Kart - SNES - Action/Sports - Racing
35. RollerCoaster Tycoon - PC - Simulation - Economic
34. Pokemon: Go - Mobile - Alternate Reality
33. Baldur's Gate - PC - RPG
32. Monster Rancher 3 - PS2 - Strategy/Action
31. Master of Orion 2 - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
30. Madden '99 - Nintendo 64 - Sports/Action - Football
29. Might and Magic VI - PC - RPG
28. TradeWars 2002 - BBS Door Game - Simulation
27. Stellaris - PC - Grand Strategy - 4xish
26. Tropico - PC - Simulation - Economic
25. Colonization - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
24. Front Office Football 2001 - PC - Sports/Simulation - Football, Economic
23. Scribblenauts - DS - Puzzle Adventure
22. Heroes of Might and Magic II - PC - Strategy - 4x
21. Guild Wars - PC - RPG - MMORPG
20. Wing Commander - PC - Simulation - Outer Space
19. Final Fantasy VII - PS1 - RPG
18. SimCity 4 - PC - Simulation - Economic
17. The Legend of Zelda - NES - RPG/Adventure - Platform
16. Half-Life - PC - Action - First Person Shooter
15. Wasteland - PC - RPG
14. Pokemon: Sword and Shield, Switch - RPG/Adventure
13. Culdcept - Saturn - Strategy
12. Magic: the Gathering - PC - Strategy/Adventure
11. Star Control II - PC - Strategy/Adventure
10. Civilization - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
9. Tales of Maj'Eyal - PC - RPG, Roguelike
8. Europa Universalis IV - PC - Strategy/Simulation
7. Master of Magic - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
6. X-Com: UFO Defense - PC - Strategy
5. Don’t Starve - PC - Action - Survival
4. Crusader Kings - PC - Strategy/Simulation
3. The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - PC - RPG
2. Ultima Online - PC - RPG - MMORPG
1. Football Manager 2006 - PC - Sports/Simulation - Football (Soccer)

[Abe Sargent]

As you can see, all games that hit from #7 and on up have spots in the Top 100 proper. You'll also note that I have put Planet Zoo and Coaster on the same line. Normally I wouldn't do that, but I just was flummoxed at what else would come off my list for them. It was hard to find 6 spaces on my list, let alone another. From casual hits like Pong, Tetris and Bejeweled to Arcade smashes like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong to big games like Adventure and Utopia in Gen 2 moving forward, we have games from many systems, consoles, and generations. Enjoy! (As a reminder, I have played these games. If there is a classic out there you want to ask about, please do so! Sometimes I never really thought they offered much (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil) and never stood out to me. Sometimes I haven't played it enough to give it justice (fewer than 10 hours with Minecraft long ago, Dwarf Fortress, or the same for FTL, games you might think I'd love but never hooked me for one reason or another, although i gave them each a few hours and they've changed massively since then, and I'd be open to trying again)

[Brian Swartz]

I think you would be very rewarded to reconsider FTL. I also like DF etc. but you don't need to invest nearly as much time with FTL.

In fact, I challenge you to an FTL dynasty. As many restarts as it takes you to finish it.

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

Ten years old, and Master of Orion II still stands out as the best strategy space game ever developed.

You have MOO2 at #32. This is the synopsis from back when you did that, and well … I'm going to argue against this relatively popular opinion. For multiple reasons, I think the original (MOO1) is still the best. Master of Orion 2 is above-average, but I wouldn't go further than that. It added a lot, but more of the additions hurt the strategic experience than helped it.

Also, to have a claim like this and not have freaking Homeworld on the list … I mean, that's practically criminal. Please tell me you've played Homeworld. Recent events have damaged my faith in humanity. I need a pick-me-up.

You have a really wide-ranging, eclectic taste in games. Many of them I played and enjoyed. Many others I never even heard of; I almost never play shooters for example because they simply don't interest me.

This War of Mine should be higher than #67
Stardew Valley should also be ahead of stuff like Tropico (which is quite an entertaining, interesting game in its own right).

I'm done quibbling though. Really excellent list, and thanks for doing this dynasty. It's been quite entertaining.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

#1. Stellaris
2016
Many
Paradox Software
Strategy – 4X, Grand Strategy

SOMEDAY I'm sure I'll get past the early/early-mid game and see what comes next.

My son admits to the same problem I have: the early game (say, first 1/3rd?) is darned good ... then the midgame arrives & we've clearly done something very very wrong in the whole "building your military" aspect.

Aaaaaand then we know things are FUBAR/approaching FUBAR ... and it's way more fun to start anew and enjoy the early game again.

But SOMEDAY, surely, we'll actually get past that point.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

SOMEDAY I'm sure I'll get past the early/early-mid game and see what comes next.

My son admits to the same problem I have: the early game (say, first 1/3rd?) is darned good ... then the midgame arrives & we've clearly done something very very wrong in the whole "building your military" aspect.

Aaaaaand then we know things are FUBAR/approaching FUBAR ... and it's way more fun to start anew and enjoy the early game again.

But SOMEDAY, surely, we'll actually get past that point.

I hear ya!

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I think you would be very rewarded to reconsider FTL. I also like DF etc. but you don't need to invest nearly as much time with FTL.

In fact, I challenge you to an FTL dynasty. As many restarts as it takes you to finish it.



You have MOO2 at #32. This is the synopsis from back when you did that, and well … I'm going to argue against this relatively popular opinion. For multiple reasons, I think the original (MOO1) is still the best. Master of Orion 2 is above-average, but I wouldn't go further than that. It added a lot, but more of the additions hurt the strategic experience than helped it.

Also, to have a claim like this and not have freaking Homeworld on the list … I mean, that's practically criminal. Please tell me you've played Homeworld. Recent events have damaged my faith in humanity. I need a pick-me-up.

You have a really wide-ranging, eclectic taste in games. Many of them I played and enjoyed. Many others I never even heard of; I almost never play shooters for example because they simply don't interest me.

This War of Mine should be higher than #67
Stardew Valley should also be ahead of stuff like Tropico (which is quite an entertaining, interesting game in its own right).

I'm done quibbling though. Really excellent list, and thanks for doing this dynasty. It's been quite entertaining.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments! Glad you looked at them. I hear ya! Everyone may order their things differently. Or find inspiration from a series in a different place. You may agree with my Castlevania, but not Symphony of the Night, or prefer other Zelda's to my choice of the first, and so forth. I do think MOO2 is better, but I don;t mind that you want to go to the mattresses in the other direction. There are some I think would be wierd (someone arguing that Star Control 3 was better than 2) but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand or assume that "they never played the games." MOO1 is much better than SC3! It's a fun game.