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Old 07-23-2006, 11:56 PM   #1
Abe Sargent
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Abe's Top 30 Video Games of All Time

I really enjoy what MattJones is doing on his sitcom thread, so I thought that I would do the same for my list.

However, I chose to focus in a bit. MattJones is doing Top 50 Sitcoms, and frankly, there's a lot of crap out there in the back. Instead of doing just one genre of video games, I am going to review all video games - Atari, Nintendo, Arcade, PC, PS1&2, N64, GameCube, Intellivision, Colecovision, Odyssey 2, Game Boys of Various Types, Lynx, TurboGraphix, Genesis, SuperNintendo, Saturn, Dreamcast, Sega Master System, and Xbox - all if which I have or have played very heavily.

I am going with my top 30 games because I began with 25 and then added more and more games to the "Honorable Mention" category. I wound up with 30 games, so why not toss them all out?

This list will obviously reflect my own biases. You'll note a lot of strategy games, for example, because I really like strategy games. There are some genres that I don't like that much. Despite there being quality games available in them, they just don't thrill me. As such, there are genres missing from this list, like stealth games (Ick).

If a game has several versions, then I included what was, for me, the definitve version. Sometimes, that is the most recently printed one. Sometimes it's not.

I am going to attmept to have one or more pics with all of these games, so if you don't see them, let me know.

Here we go.



-Abe
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Old 07-24-2006, 12:10 AM   #2
Abe Sargent
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I do have one honorable mention game. So this would technically be number 31 on a list of thirty, but I wanted to put in an entry for it:

Honorable Mention: Sea Battle
Intellivision
Mattel Electronics
1980
GameSpot Review - 8.9 (There is no official review, this is the cumulative review score of all players)
Action - Strategy




Of all of the video games from the early 80s, the only one that stands the test of time well is Sea Battle. Designed fo rthe IntelliVision, and one of its first games, Sea Battle is a unique strategy game that must be played between two players.

The game is divided up into two phases. An overland phase sees you deploying various ships and trying to outmaneuver your opponent. Each player has a certain number of ships of various types. One lays invisible mines, while another canl sweep mines. If you get either your Troop Transport or your Aircraft Carrier into your opponent's base, you win.




When one of your fleets meets up with an opponent's fleet, you enter a battle screen, where you duel with your opponent. A couple of ships have torpedos, while the rest have gun batteries. Different ships have different speeds, weapons, range, damage capability and armor. A big Battleship, for example, can do so much damage it can kill smaller ships with one hit and destroy the biggest with two or three. It has a long range, but it can occasionally be outmaneuvered by a faster vessel, like the fastest ship in the game, the PT Boat.



Like all IntelliVision games, Sea Battle came with an overlay for the controller, which you can see here:



This will show how many ships you have at the beginning and what types they are.

In deploying fleet, your opponent only knows the size, not the content. He also will not know where you drop mines. Therefore, there is a lot of cat and mouse in the overland game.

This game's dual nature with one side beign strategy and the other side with a battle map and each being equally challenging was a unique creation that went on to inspire numerous games (To be fair, IntelliVision's Space Battle, which was one of the system's launch game was the first video game with two interweaving maps and challenegs, but the strategy map is too, light to really count to most poeple. It's just sending ships to computer controlled bad guys before they reach your base, and then you fight). Sea Battle is still a load of fun because the game's challenge comes from the opponent.

Chess is still a good game despite its age because it provides an amazing foundation for you but the challenge lies in the other's skill. The same is true of Sea Battle. I still have an IntelliVision and play this occasionally with friends, who just love it.

This is one of the greatest classic video games, and it stands the test of time, unlike others. The IntelliVision was a very avant-garde system with many brillant and inovative games, like Utopia (often called Civilization 0.5) Football (with actual plays called), Baeball (with an actual voice) and Treasure of Tarmin (the original first-person 3D game. Still, those games have become quaint, while Sea Battle remains a good game to this day.


This was the honorable mention. Stay tuned when we hit the first game on my list!

-Anxiety
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Old 07-24-2006, 12:39 AM   #3
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I hope you guys can see the pics from the previous game. Now it's time to hit the actual list. Here comes:

30. Baldur's Gate
PC
BioWare
1998
GameSpot Review - 9.2
RPG




This RPG shocked the PC World away from the previous RPG King of the Hill (which will chart higher on our list) and showed what technology and a new engine could do. It single-handedly put BioWare on the map and spawned numerous quality RPGs like Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale 2 and Fallout 2, and even can be seen in KOTOR, KOTOR II and Neverwinter Nights.



Baldur's Gate was an engrossing isometric game that re-established D&D rules as pertinent to PC role-playing when most people were laughing at the old SSI AD&D games, which had continued to be released long past their due date.

Baldur's Gate was so intricate for an RPG of its time, and that's what made it special. No RPG got as much mileage out of as little level progression as BG.

The continuing quest of your main chracter and the ultimate revelation in the game were both very well done, and even a surprise to me who, at the time, had read every single Forgotten Realms novel published.

Who can forget the great way this game handled theft? When many RPGs allowed the players to rob from virtually any chest and any closet in anybody's home, it was BG that made that stealing and had guards attack you. It did a lot of little things that made the world more and more beleivable.

From graphic superiority over contemporary RPGs to an intricate and believable world, Baldur's Gate was both a satisfying play and an innovative game. It did have some issues, like pathfinding and dungeon crawling, which were never that good. However, at its heart, BG was an amazing game hich you can still play and enjoy today.


-Anxiety
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Old 07-24-2006, 01:12 AM   #4
Abe Sargent
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This will be the last one tonight. Again, I hope you can see the pics.


29. Monster Rancher 3
PlayStation 2
Techmo
2001
GameSpot Review - 8.4
Strategy/Fight Monster Breeder





FYI - I purchased my copy of Monster Rancher from my winnings at a Blackjack table at Greektown Casino, my first trip ever to a casino.


Monster Rancher is a franchise that, frankly, a lot of people don't take seriously. Where it's more popular cousin, Pokemon, is an RPG-Monster Breeder game, Monster Rancher is more of a Strategy-Monster Breeder game (although MR 4 and MR Evo are more RPG like than not).

MR3 was the game that finally got it. It crosses a simple fighting game element with a Breeding game and, much like Sea Battle, creates two seperate games.

The first game is the strategy game. Here you raise a monster using various training methods. You feed it various foods. You react to it using various commands. You give it various items. You equip it with various accessories. All of these methods are more or less effective on various monsters, each of which has its own personality. The metallic Henger, for example, likes a completley different type of food than the snakelike Naga, who likes a different types of food than the large Hare. The Henger likes oil and metal, the Naga like meat, and the Hare like veggies. The Henger will not respond much to either positive or negative comments, the Hare adores attention and the Naga wants to be pushed to excellence. Each has a different personality, training method and so forth.

The best pic I could find of a monster being trained is from the Japanese version, sorry. Here a nasty death-like monster called a Joker is being raised in the desert:



There are five different regions and every monster has evolved to live in these different regions. Monsters will train best in the region that they relate too. You can take a monster from one regions and evolve it to become a monster of a different region, if you are so inclined. The regions are desert, underwater, forest, artic, and jungle.

You begin the game just in the forest, and have to unlock the other areas by doing well in tournaments held there.

The game is very complex, with heaps of items, skills, moves, and stats that determine how well your monster fights. When you enter a tournament, you can control your monster and fight it out:



A Gitan that has been named 19 is duking it out with a Raiden named Mon. This isn't as complex as Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, but it is a very nice element to the game. Strategy is one part of the game is mixed with strategy in the other, which really helps the game, in my opinion. I actually won the game with a Gitan, by the way.

Like many Japanese games, it does suffer from a lack of documentation at times. Occasionally you'll come across a nifty accessory for your creature and have no idea what it does. Most of them have a clue for you, but a few do not.

There are cute little monsters in here, but don't let that fool you. A lot of monsters are just downright mean looking, like the Naga, Joker, Durahan, Dragon, Zoom, Zan and more. Don't let the cute Mocchi, Suzarin, Lesione and Suezo make you think that everything is all Pokemon here, because that definately is not the case. It's more of a mix.

I really like these games that combine multiple elements into an intriguing game. MR3 is great at representing the different personalities of monsters and does a much better job at the details of the game than its predecessors.

A lot of people love the innovative way that the MR series generates monsters for you. There are dozens of monsters and sub-breads in the game. You don;t initially have access to any, and you have to generate some from "saucer stones." You open up the PS2 and pull out the game, putting in a CD, DVD or PS2 game. Then the game reads the new disc and creates a monster. Some DVDs, CDs, or PS2 games have been hardcoded to generate a special rare monster that can only be unlocked with those discs. For example, the widescreen version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon creates a unique Dragon called a Tigon which is a cross between a Dragon and a Tiger.

Ultimately, this game is amazing for its depth and detail. I played this game through a ton of monsters, and you can't beat it on the first monster. I didn't beat the game until my sixth monster.


Well, that's all for tonight. See you later.



-Anxiety
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Old 07-24-2006, 09:36 AM   #5
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Never beat MR...wish I could find something for the Nintendo DS or something.

Heck, for that matter, I never knew you could "BEAT" MR. I loved to play the game just to play it.

Makes me wish I had my PS2 and MR out here.
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Old 07-24-2006, 09:44 AM   #6
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At least Sea Battle got some love. We still break out the intellivision to play. Nothing better than getting a lucky shot off with a transport and destroying a sub. Of course, you had to find tricks to try to disguise the fact you were laying mines. Pretty obvious when you just start mashing buttons when you have a ship in the middle of nowhere...
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Old 07-24-2006, 10:51 AM   #7
Abe Sargent
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ardent enthusiast
Never beat MR...wish I could find something for the Nintendo DS or something.

Heck, for that matter, I never knew you could "BEAT" MR. I loved to play the game just to play it.

Makes me wish I had my PS2 and MR out here.


MR3 has a promotional system where you rise in level after level as you win tournaments. Once you advance to level S, there are five tournaments where, if you make it to the finals, you will fight the top champion in the region - one torunament for each region. Once you've beaten the Top 5, you can then challenge a nasty dragon named Ragnarok. Beating Ragnarok wins the game. Of course, the game continues, and you can raise more monsters, keep fighting Ragnarok, Top 5 tourneys, and such, but the storyline ends when you defeat Ragnarok.
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Old 07-24-2006, 10:52 AM   #8
Abe Sargent
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mustang
At least Sea Battle got some love. We still break out the intellivision to play. Nothing better than getting a lucky shot off with a transport and destroying a sub. Of course, you had to find tricks to try to disguise the fact you were laying mines. Pretty obvious when you just start mashing buttons when you have a ship in the middle of nowhere...


Exactly, which is why it is so strategic. No video game taught me as much strategy in my early days as Sea Battle did.
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Old 07-24-2006, 11:37 AM   #9
Abe Sargent
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Here, we are, in my lunch break, and the thing on my mind? Game number 28 on our countdown. Incidentally, I've edited the previous posts to add in the game developer, which I'm going to include from now on. At number 28, here's a game from a company many of you love and remember fondly:

28. Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares
PC
MicroProse
1996
GameSpot Review - 8.7
4X


http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/master_of_orion_1_2





At its height, MicroProse was a legend of strategy games, and this will not be the only game from them to make this list. Ten years old, and Master of Orion II still stands out as the best strategy space game ever developed. It outscales all competitors from Galatic Civilizations and GalCiv II to Space Empires IV, Master of Orion III, Fragile Allegiance, and more.

Master of Orion II was legendary for being one of the best games around when it came to giving players options. From building your own race from scratch to outifitting ships with the weapons and equipment that you want, MOO2 really gave a player a lot of cloth to weave with.

Like several previous games, Master of Orion II was a weaving of two seperate games. The basic game was a strategy game where you colonized planets, issued build orders, developed new technologies, dispatched fleets, signed up leaders, accumulated taxes and tariffs, and more.



This created a lovely Civ-like space game that was tons of fun. It was balanced with some interesting tidbits. Namely, Orion itself, a star system in every galaxy with an amazing plant, just waiting for your ship to arrive, but guarded by the aptly named Guardian of Orion. And then there were those Antareans, nasty enemies of the people of Orion who are hopping from their dimension to yours, and you can build a Dimensional Transportal and hop over to their world and kick their ass. Other flavorful thigns included space monsters, especailly a space worm that would blockade a star system until you killed it, and if left alone long enough, would spawn other space worms that headed off to other systems. There were also Space Crystal monsters and Space Dragons. Pirate Caches in some systems rewarded the first one to find them with treasure. It was a wonderfully done game.

Can anyone else remember the sheer frustration that a Hyperspace Flux caused? That random event stopped all interstellar movement from occuring. It was nasty.

The other half of the game was when two fleets met up and began combat, you swiched to a combat screen where you moved your ships like chess pieces across the starry plane and fired weapons, missles, interceptors and various rays, including one ray that would actually spin an opposing ship.



Master of Orion II is really the grandchild of Sea Battle, and I hope you can see that. Both have an overview strategy map, where you duke it out strategically, and then both move to a battle front where you fight it out with ships, either in space or sea.

Master of Orion II is an amazing game that is still great to play today. I found my old disc, installed the game on my XP, downloaded the most recent patch, and then played the game again. No slow programs, no cheats, and no problems.

I know that MOO2 has a few problems. Once you understood the game, you could buld a broken race (Creative, Democracy, +1 research). Although, I personally swear by Subterranean and Large Home World as absolute requirements (which gives you twice the starting size HW as other races).

Still, the game has stood as one of the greatest strategy games of all time, and the space game all others are measured by.

-Anxiety
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Old 07-24-2006, 12:26 PM   #10
Poli
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Anxiety
MR3 has a promotional system where you rise in level after level as you win tournaments. Once you advance to level S, there are five tournaments where, if you make it to the finals, you will fight the top champion in the region - one torunament for each region. Once you've beaten the Top 5, you can then challenge a nasty dragon named Ragnarok. Beating Ragnarok wins the game. Of course, the game continues, and you can raise more monsters, keep fighting Ragnarok, Top 5 tourneys, and such, but the storyline ends when you defeat Ragnarok.

I can't remember all the subquests, but I assume you could continue those as well.
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Old 07-24-2006, 12:47 PM   #11
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Last two pics didn't show up for me...
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Old 07-24-2006, 12:57 PM   #12
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How does MR3 compare to the original MR? The one thing I liked about the original MR that I don't recall later versions using is the raising one monster at a time thing.

If I remember right, later versions had you raising multiple monsters at a time, which I didn't care as much for.
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Old 07-24-2006, 01:04 PM   #13
Abe Sargent
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Izulde
How does MR3 compare to the original MR? The one thing I liked about the original MR that I don't recall later versions using is the raising one monster at a time thing.

If I remember right, later versions had you raising multiple monsters at a time, which I didn't care as much for.


MR3 is the last one monster at a time game. MR4 you raise multipel monsters and I agree, it just doesn't work.

On another note, let's see if I can find new pics, eh?

-Anxiety


EDIT: I've added new pics to MOO2 after the first one, hopefully they work!
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Old 07-24-2006, 01:35 PM   #14
spleen1015
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I am doing a top 101 poll over at OOTP. I've been slacking off much lately, but MOO2 is on my list. I have it much higher than you do. I wonder what the top 27 games are.
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Old 07-24-2006, 03:46 PM   #15
Abe Sargent
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spleen - Since you asked, and I have a few spare moments here at the end of my work day, why don't we take a look at my #27 game? This is sure to get comments and comparisons to Kodos, but I don't care, because is really is good enough to chart.

27. Madden '99
N64
EA Sports
1998
GameSpot Review - 8.8
Sports - Football





This little game got me hooked in video football games. I played it non stop in franchise mode for several months straight. Later versions would also be played by me for several months.

I played Madden 98 a bit after getting into Madden 99, and it felt much worse. Madden 99 was a huge step forward in playability, realism, AI, and strategy. To my mind, Madden 99 is the definitive Madden.

Maybe on a website like this, I won;t need to expound upon Madden, but I will, never the less.

Madden was beautiful because of the great amount of detail. The large playbook was easy to maneuver and thus easy to find the right play. The controls gave you tons of options while never requiring you to become an elite joystick jockey in order to defeat an opponent (like more modern versions of Madden have required). You could win simply by calling the right plays and executing them.

The sheer realism of the game when you actually played the game brought me back to sports games. I hadn't played sports games for a long time because they were broken (Techmo Bowl) and could be defeated by the same play or same player every time. In fact, up until Madden 99, if you had asked me what the best football game ever was, I would have said IntelliVision's NFL Football from 1978.




Not so with Madden 99. There weren't the problems of broken players or broken plays. In fact, the game was so realistic and engrossing, that I remember playing on a big screen TV in the main lounge at our residence hall and having people walk by thinking there was an actual football game on. I found that to be quite impressive.

What really sold me on the game, however, was the detailed franchise mode. Contracts, salary cap, and roster oversight was all done with a great deal of detail, to my mind, at least.

For me, Madden would ultimately be a gateway drug, getting me into the sports sim world. I loved Madden and its franchise mode so much that I posted some ideas for expanding it at MaddenMania and someone said it sounded like Front Office Football. The rest is, as they say, history.

In fact, I enjoyed Madden 99 so much that I bought an N64 so I could play it. It was system seller to me.

From the franchise mode to a detailed and highly entertaining game against humans or the computer, the game was great. To this day, I'd put Madden 99 up against the best sports games ever made in any genre, sim or otherwise.


-Anxiety
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Old 07-24-2006, 07:46 PM   #16
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I thought it would be interesting to go back in time and add the Gamespot Final score for those games here that were reviewed, in order to see what comtemporaries thought of the game. I'm about to do so now.
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Old 07-24-2006, 08:11 PM   #17
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BG II better be in the top 5 at least
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Old 07-24-2006, 09:09 PM   #18
Abe Sargent
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Originally Posted by Havok
BG II better be in the top 5 at least


Nope. When looking at a franchise, I select what is, for me, the definitive version, the one I played the most, the most compelling one. I don;t want the list clogged up with a bunch of, for example, Madden 99, Madden 2000, Madden 2001, etc. If you see an entry, that will be the only one in that franchise. That does not, however, prevent similar games from charting. BG prevents BG II and Throne of Bhaal from charting, but Fallout 2, Icewind Dale, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights and Planescape: Torment are all still eligible.

This list is very eclectic, because I love video games so much. A variety of different games on different systems will chart, although PC will be the most dominant system, I believe. Which only makes sense. PC game have been around for decades, but how long were Atari games made or Sega Master System games made, etc?


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Hoenstly folks, I expected more comment on the Madden pick. I know a lot of people here at FOFC don't particularly care for Madden. Anyways, I'll put up number 26 before I head to bed tonight.

-Anxiety
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Old 07-24-2006, 10:03 PM   #19
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Ah, here we are at the next entry in the countdown. This is the first game referred to by a previoous entry, in this case, entry number 30. Let's take a look at a game largely forgotten by time:

26. Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven
3DO/New World Computing
PC
1998
GameSpot review - 9.1
RPG



http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/might...imited_edition



Bad Timing. That's what has kept Might and Magic VI from being known as one of the best RPGs of all time. Mere bad timing.

M&M6 came out after a dead period in classic RPGs. For several years previously, you couldn't find a classic RPG in print with a compass and a flashlight. The genre was dead, game developers had moved to other games, and the classic, expansive fantasy RPG was declared dead.

Then New World Computing thumbed its nose at the world and released Might and Magic VI. Everything changed.

Suddenly, reviewers are lauding the game. Might and Magic VI is credited with revitalizing the genre. Classic RPGs are back and wow, are they ever big news. Rejuvenation has begun.

You knew from the Larry Elmore box art that this was a classic RPG. The world was the most expansive world ever in a video game. The matrix style of adventruing with loads of side quests and tons of things to do and places to go gave the game tremendous value.

The game was important because it brought a sense of reality to the game. Gone was haphazard dungeon design, now everything made sense. If you needed in invade the Temple of the Snake on an island later in the game, it had in it Snakes and Medusas. Snakes were one of the first monsters you fought in the game and were amazingly easy by the time you got to the Temple of the Snake, yet here they are, all over the place. About a third of the way through the game you are trouncing around a sewer. Sure, the rats that are all over the place are really easy kills, but they make sense there. You don't have to worry about there being mega-hard monsters down there "just because." Dungeon design made sense.

The game also included a signifcant upgrade in graphics. It was the best graphics people had seen in an RPG.



The inventory management system was genius. You had a limited amount of space, and different items took up different amounts of space. You had to physically arrange your items in your backpack to maximize space. It was pure genius.

Another great innovation was flying. You could cast a flying spell outdoors, then head up into the air, flying over monsters and land quickly. However, the game managers understood the powerful ability it was, and on a few overland maps, many of the monsters flew, which made flying less powerful.



Here we see our heroes flying over a town. However, some of the monsters are Winged Devils, that fly (this is one of the hardest overland maps in the game). As you can see, the first and third members of the party have been put to sleep while the middle member has been turned to stone. The last member better do something quickly!

The game was largely realtime, but you could pasue it at any time and go into a turn based mode (Baldur's Gate would use the same idea). Therefore, you could play either game, and many players played both, pausing when they got to monsters so they could plan strategies.

The game wasn't perfect and fell prey to the vicious 3DO curse. Every world they created ended by revealeing that it was really a sci-fi world and not a fantasy world at all. In most you end up exploring spaceships and what not. By the end of this gane you are using "Ancient Weapons" called Blaster Pistols and Blaster Rifles and have discovered that the Devils are a space race bent on destroying the planet.

The graphics, although great for an RPG, were not that hot compared to other games.

All of the praise and lauding for M&M6 ended when Baldur's Gate was released seven months later. Up until then, people were talking about a Might and Magic revolution in RPGs and how the classic RPG was back. Then Baldur's gate made them forget about Might and Magic.

In fact, the review of Baldur's Gate gives it higher scores that M&M6 in graphics and sound, as it should. BG kicked Might and Magic to the curb in terms of graphics, and remember, M&M was considered to be top notch for an RPG. However, M&M was evaluated higher in terms of gameplay, because Might and Magic was such a smooth game from start to finish.

The Mandate of Heaven scores higher on my list than BG for that very reason. It was, simply put, a better game. It took longer to play, the game was more open-ended, the world was bigger, the scope was better and even the skill system outclassed the AD&D one.

Bad timing.


-Anxiety
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Old 07-24-2006, 10:10 PM   #20
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I might, maybe, get to the next game tonight. However, as a bit of a teaser, I beleive it is a game that very few people, if any, would expect. However, after seeing it, I believe most people familiar with it will absolutely agree.


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Old 07-24-2006, 10:25 PM   #21
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You tease. I like the list so far but we will see what you have ranked higher up the list as the Baldurs Gate series is very high on my list.

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Old 07-24-2006, 11:22 PM   #22
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I loved M&M 6! In fact I still have a screenshot of my characters after I had beaten the game.

I'm really enjoying your dynasty as I find myself agreeing to most of your choices.

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Old 07-24-2006, 11:36 PM   #23
Abe Sargent
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I like M&M because it was the game where I created my Pimp N Hoes strategy. i take bad ass looking guy and then all females for the other characters. The guy is usually a burly fighter and what. Later, I would regularly roleplay as a female just to change things up. Let me tell you, some games just broke when you played a female character (like KOTOR and KOTOR II which regularly refer to you as male even if you select female. In fact, in some statements made by people you'd be referered to as both male and female in the same statement - made for messy problems)

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Old 07-25-2006, 03:06 AM   #24
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Okay folks, here we are at the next game. Again, I suspect that this game will evoke a "I never thought about but you know, you're right" response from you good folks. It's definitely outside the box.

25. TradeWars 2002
BBS Door Game
Gary Martin
1985
No GameSpot Review
Simulation - Trade





This was a game designed for operation on Bulletin Board Systems across the country for any computer that could connect (could be PC could be a Mac, could even be an Aquarius). Loads of people would log on to local BBSs and play door games, download software, and talk on forums, just like this one...

The most popular thing to do was, of course, to play games. One game stood above the rest in terms of quality and capability. Although I remember many games from this genre fondly (American President, Arena, Solar Realms Elite, etc), the one that really stood out was TradeWars 2002.

The game focused around a galaxy that players explored and traded from one port to another. Players tried to move about from system to system until they found an ideal trading area and then traded until they made money.

There were a variety of shiptypes and players could buy new ships and outfit ships with shields, fighters, holds, and a variety of gagets like scanners, photon torpedoes, genesis torps, mines, beacons, and so forth.

You began the game with a solid ship, a merchant cruiser:




Every alien and player had an alignment, and you could attack aliens and players to gain or lose alignment. You could also have your ship destroyed by running into the dangerous Ferrengi. A Ferrengi ship could really own your day.




Each galaxy had a main starport where you could go to do business, like collect bounties on evil players, check out ASCII videos at the cineplex, buy items, sell a ship you are towing, gamble, bank your money so it is safe, grafitti up a wall, and if you are evil, head to the underground to do things like change your name. Evil players can also try to rob from ports.




Once you have some cash, you can find a nice away sector somewhere and launch a Genesis Torpedo. You can then land on your newly created planet and harvest free minerals from it to sell after you ship in colonists from Terra. To protect your goods, you can build a citadel on the planet. Over time and an investment in the citadel, you can level it up several levels, including among other things, a Quasar Cannon that blasts intruders, a battle computer to control defensive fighters, and a shield generator. Deploy mines to protect the area and leave a beacon to taunt people. You can stuff up to five planets in your sector, and you can even build a commercial port.

The galaxy also has Ferrengal, the Ferrengi homeworld, which has a lot of credits stored on it. Conquer Ferrengal and you'll get a planet with a citadel already leveled up a bit and a nice influx of cash.

Galaxies are customizable to the Nth degree, so each iteration of TW2002 is different that previous ones.

There are loads of other interesting bits as well. A few sectors are FedSpace, and you can attack or be attacked there. There are three Federal starships controlled by the computer that roam around and attack evil players on sight. There's tons more things jammed together as well.

Unlike other door games, this one is still active. In the late nineties, programmers edited the game to make it accessible via the net, and people still actively play the game, although usually with updated graphics. Imagine a game so addictive, so detailed that it transcended its original technology and is still being played today.

The game is very moddable, and tons of files have been added so you can add the Borg, the Crystalline Entity, random black holes, and more,

In short, this was a very inventive game that is still getting played today in a later version. It ruled the roost in BBS games and should rightfully go down as one of the best video games of all time.

This game was murder to find pics for, BTW. I hope the ones I found really work.

-Anxiety
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Old 07-25-2006, 01:07 PM   #25
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Old 07-25-2006, 01:12 PM   #26
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I was a CO-SYSOP of a BBS my Dad and I ran together.

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Old 07-25-2006, 02:52 PM   #27
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The next game on our countdown continues a three game sci-fi streak that TW2002 started. Say hello to a game that I've pushed here on the forums:

24. Star Chamber
Nayantara Studios
PC
2003
GameSpot Review - 8.8
Strategy - Card Game



http://starchamber.station.sony.com/




A couple of years ago I stumbled across this independant game created by a few guys at Nayantara Studios. The game is simple in concept. You play against a real life opponent online, in a space strategy game that is like a simpler version of Master of Orion. You conquer planets, build resources and so forth. You can win either through conquering your opponent's homeworld, winning three power plays at the Star Chamber or getting thirty more culture than your opponent.

The Star Chamber is a neutral planet where political machinations take place every six turns. Typically, each player gets a vote for every citizen of theirs at the Star Chamber when the vote takes place. You can vote for a Power Play, or to get ships or culture for your empire. Three Power Plays equals a victory for a player.

Here is a Star Chamber Vote:




Artifact planets produce culture every turn, and control of these planets can also be a key to victory.

Therefore, you can try to grab and hold aritifact planets, try to overwhelm your opponent at the Star Chamber or try to take their homeworld. All three paths to victory create a game that really has three fronts. Mere board play alone will win or lose you many games.



However, there is another side to Star Chamber. In addition to being this strategy chess game with three fronts and numerous options, it also is an online collectible card game. There are collectible cards that come in booster packs you purchase and you build a deck.

There are five techs in the game (similar to the five colors in Magic) that can be made, and over time, you'll make more and more techs. There are ten races in the game, and each race is a combination of two techs. My favorite race, the Silica, are a combination of the Life and Cyber techs. Another race, the Ixa, are a combiantion of Order and Entropy techs. And so on it goes through the ten races.

The beauty of this game is in the interweaving of a CCG overtop of a board game that is already detailed. The cards can make specialized ships, give you leaders, and affect the game in a variety of ways. Every so often, a new expansion set is released and the game evolves.

I can't tell you how amazing this synergy of games becomes. The total game created by the intertwining genres in more than the sum of its parts, and it is truly an amazing game.

You can also play a larger game with more players, or just watch the game getting played.

It was recently bought out by Matrix Games, which repackaged the game. Although the Matrix Edition of the game did add some vital things to the game, including a small single player campaign, they also did some things that I disagree with.

Like any CCG, you have to buy packs of the cards. The older, original Nayantara version of the game understood that the cards were electronic and priced them accordingly. You could buy a booster box, 36 packs of 15 cards each, for 30 dollars or so. For a 30 dollar investment, you could play this game tons and still end up paying less than you would for many video games.

However, Matrix has upped the pricing structure, and as a result, the game is now more expensive to play. It's still a great game, it just has ceased to be a cheap game as well.

The second decision made after Matrix took over was to reduce prize support for tournaments. There are tournaments held weekly and the prizes for them used to be amazing, but quickly became less sterling. The number of prize diminished, and so has tournament play.

One disadvantage the game has always had is that there are never more than 20 people playing at a time, and that's during peak hours. I decided to log on as I write this, just to see how many players are on. There were nine, including Merakon, the guy who was behind creating the game.

That's one of the great things about this game. Imagine playing a casual game against the creator. I played him twice in my first week as a player! You are always rubbing noses with the community manager, the game developers, and more. It's one of the most mature internet communities out there, and very warm and friendly. Just like this place used to be in its earlier days


-Anxiety
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Old 07-25-2006, 02:53 PM   #28
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Hmm. Those pics are too big. Let me see if I can find any a bit smaller.

-Anxiety


EDIT: Okay, I found some smaller screenies
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Old 07-25-2006, 10:58 PM   #29
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Rounding out our little mini trio of scifi games all in a row is the only simulator to make the countdown. It was truly one of the great games of its day, and its impact on games since has been astounding. I'm sure you need no introduction to number 23 on my list:


23. Wing Commander
Origin
PC
1990
GameSpot Review - 9.2 (Note this is also before GameSpot gave out reviews and is the average user review)
Simulation - Flight




Wing Commander is one of the great, all time PC games in any genre, period. I don't normally go for simulators, but Wing Commander was amazing at it. The game was truly revolutionary in many ways.

First of all, Wing Commander had a matrix path through the game. At the end of each series of missions that made up an element in the war against the Kilrathi, if you won, you would advance to one new campaign and if you lost, you would go to another. If you won all of your campaigns, you could make it through the game with relative ease and speed. If you lost, then you had to go through more campaigns that get harder and harder until you finally get to either the Humans Won campaign or the Humans Lost campaign. This sort of reactionary game not only increased its playabilty as you moved through new campaigns but also added an organic factor to the simulator.

The flight and combat simulator were top notch for the time. The graphics were great, the play style was great, and the concepts were great too.

As you took damage, systems on board the ship would start to get damaged, and the game realistically simulated that. The game also was constructed in such a way that the best combat strategy was to wait, aim and fire instead of spraying the sky with bullets and hoping for luck.

The AI for the Kilrathi and your wingmate were both really good, with various wingmates having different personalties with different styles of combat. Who can forget Maniac flying in front of your guns to attack a Kilrath? That was really annoying.




You had different ships, different missiles, different guns, and different wingmates throughout the game. The enemy also had different ships, different missiles, different guns, etc. They also had a few unique and nasty pilots in the game that you had a chance to shoot down.

Even the graphics looked good. I mean, take a look at this screenshot of the station lounge. Doesn't this look great for the time?



Not only would Wing Commander spawn a whole mess of sequels, but it also featured one of the first expansion packs for a video game (some believe it is, actually, the first expansion pack. Much like figuring out who invented the remix when numerous artists came up with the idea simultaneously, figuring out the first game to have an expansion pack is difficult at best. However, Wing Commander is in the conversation.)

I can still remember fighting against Kilrathi. I can remember how hard an escort mission was with these dumb transport vessels that were slow and easy to hit. I can remember a mission I simpy couldn't succeed despite ten or twelve tries where I had to go out and save one of our capital ships from being blown up by Kilrathi that were already attacking it. I remember Paladin as a crusty old rules lawyering bastard.

I also remember that in some missions there would be Kilrathi off the trail you are supposed to follow and if you journey outwards, you could get some major kills. You could be promoted or awarded medals based on your perforamnce on missions. It was great.

Wing Commander would get away from some of this open endedness in later sequals, instead using voice acting and cut scenes to tell the story instead of letting you choose the story (in fact, WCII was one at the forefront of using voice acting and WCIII was at the forefront of full motion video).

Still, the game was near perfect in every way, and the only thing keeping me from giving it a higher evaluation is the fact that the game was a bit too joystick jockey for my own perference. It came down a bit too much to reflexes and such. Nevertheless, the game is good enough to warrant a spot here with the greatest games of all time, to my mind.


-Anxiety
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Old 07-26-2006, 12:27 AM   #30
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Just wanted to chime in on how much I am enjoying this. I haven't even played half of these games, but your level of detail is fantastic and I too greatly remember the BBS days.
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Old 07-26-2006, 12:30 AM   #31
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Well, I don't expect that Wing Commander would surprise anybody, but this next entry probably will. Next up is the highest charting game purely for flavor. This is, quite frankly, one of the most flavorful games I've ever played. Give it up for:

22. Tropico
PopTop Software
PC
2002
GameSpot Review - 8.6
Simulation - City Builder



http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/tropico_reloaded




Flavor. To me, a game is flavorful if it oozes flavor out of everything it does. Tropico is one of the most flavorful games ever designed, period, and that experience allows it to slide into my countdown.

Tropico will never win any awards for being just a simulation game, but it is a pretty good one. Tropico is the game that has been installed on my PC the longest. You can play a game in just a few hours, making for one evening's adventure.

Of course, there are a lot of options in Tropico. You can build a tourist trap, complete with hotels, beaches and such. You could pander to wealthy tourists with rich hotels, casinos, and spas. Or, you could build your economy around industry and factories.

Over time, different factions of people on the island will like or dislike you according to what you have done, and the difficulty of the game lies with appeasing enough of your citizens that you keep in power. Communists, democrats, militarists, religious, environmentals and more all needed to be balanced.



In order to keep people happy, you will need to balance shelter, jobs, payment, health clinics, electricity, army, churches, newspapers, radio, various offices, banks, police, beauty, and many differnt courses of entertainment all while keeping your people happy. Just balancing the island, before adding in tourists, can be difficult.

By the way, all islanders have an outfit that they wear that symbolizes their job. I love the Cabaret girls oufit. Every island of mine has to feature a Cabaret.

You can have a variety of people working the island in different ways in order to gain money and resources. Farmers can plant bananas, pineapples, papayas, corn, tobacco or sugar. Each product has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Ranchers can raise goats or cattle. Miners can mine bauxite, iron or gold. Loggers can timber trees. Fishers can harvest the oceans. And on top of all of this, you can build various industries in order to work your raw material and then sell for a much higher profit.

Here a plane from an airport is flying over some cheap housing, the teamster's union and farms:




Instead of the game being about ruling the world or defeating the Ancient and Evil Enemy of the Empire, its just about taking control in a small caribbean island and keeping it for as long as possible.

The game has a ton of options available called Edicts. These are various Edicts that you can issue to curry favor, change policies, and so forth. You can have Social Security. You can try to host the Pan-Carribbean Games if you have a soccer stadium. If you have a Cathedral, you can host a visit from the Pope. You can bring in a famous lounge singer to headline at one of your clubs. You can declare a festival. You can encourage safe sex. You can send out trade envoys to the USA or the USSR and try to curry favor and maybe support. You can sponser a National Geographic special on the wonders of Tropico (brings in more Eco Tourists,, for example). You can also jail a dissenter, kill them, torture them, and so forth. It's a great way of changing the game.

The game oozes flavor. The people speak either in Spanish or English with a Spanish accent except for tourists, who speak the language or accent of their home country. Russians, for example, speak with a Russian accent. My favorite is a cheap American tourist male who will sometimes say "GRA-SEE-YUS" in a southern accent. It's quite funny.

There are four different types of tourists you can attract. Rich tourists, cheap (called slob) tourists, eco tourists and spring break tourists. Different tourists will have different amounts of money and want to see different things. Eco tourists would love an archeological dig while rich tourists and wealthy spring break tourists will go to a spa and slob tourists hit pools really hard (despite there being beaches, they seem to really like pools).

Here is a rich hotel, which obviously caters to the wealthier tourists:



This creates an interesting tourist situation. Should you try and accomodate one type of tourist and try to bnring in that one type? Should you instead try to make them all happy?

There's flavor in other ways. The narrator speaks to you with a Spanish accent. The music is amazing with very authentic sounding carribbean music. The colors, the faded stucco on the chapel, the pictures of people, the trees, the rocks - it all looks so authentic.

The game is enchanced by its flavor. In the beginning, you have to choose various background options and skills and disadvnatages. Even those are flavorful. I personally like to play as a corporate shill who has been set up by a corporation to run the island for as long as I can keep control (you get a free hotel if you do this). Other options include revolutionary, hereditary, and more. You can be Che Guevara and try to set up a new state. Or you can be a famous lounge singer trying to restablish your credibility. An intellectual, a man of the people, a man of the Soveits - it's all your choice at the beginning of the game.

There is not a sour note in the entire game, and what it set out to do, it did fantasticly. Other games are more influential, more innovative, and as you can see, I generally respect that. However, this game made it here simply by exploring a small corner of the gaming world and polishing it until there wasn't a blemish left.

-Anxiety
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Old 07-26-2006, 01:10 AM   #32
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Nope. When looking at a franchise, I select what is, for me, the definitive version, the one I played the most, the most compelling one. I don;t want the list clogged up with a bunch of, for example, Madden 99, Madden 2000, Madden 2001, etc. If you see an entry, that will be the only one in that franchise. That does not, however, prevent similar games from charting. BG prevents BG II and Throne of Bhaal from charting, but Fallout 2, Icewind Dale, Knights of the Old Republic, Neverwinter Nights and Planescape: Torment are all still eligible.

This list is very eclectic, because I love video games so much. A variety of different games on different systems will chart, although PC will be the most dominant system, I believe. Which only makes sense. PC game have been around for decades, but how long were Atari games made or Sega Master System games made, etc?


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Hoenstly folks, I expected more comment on the Madden pick. I know a lot of people here at FOFC don't particularly care for Madden. Anyways, I'll put up number 26 before I head to bed tonight.

-Anxiety


that breaks my heart

BG 1 might have been the orginal, but BG II is the best RPG every made IMO and my favorite game ever.
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Old 07-26-2006, 03:53 AM   #33
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Did you try Tropico's expansion pack?

Also I heard that in vanilla Tropico, if you didn't go US in the relations war, it was damned difficult to be successful.

Or maybe that's Hidden Agenda I'm thinking of.
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Old 07-26-2006, 09:03 AM   #34
Abe Sargent
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Originally Posted by Izulde
Did you try Tropico's expansion pack?

Also I heard that in vanilla Tropico, if you didn't go US in the relations war, it was damned difficult to be successful.

Or maybe that's Hidden Agenda I'm thinking of.


Yes, I did run the expansion pack.

Nah, you don't need to curry favor with either one if you don't want too. Neither the US nor the USSR gives you major things, some some money and occasioanlly immigrants or cheaper ways to build something - that sort of thing.

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Old 07-26-2006, 02:20 PM   #35
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At least Sea Battle got some love. We still break out the intellivision to play. Nothing better than getting a lucky shot off with a transport and destroying a sub. Of course, you had to find tricks to try to disguise the fact you were laying mines. Pretty obvious when you just start mashing buttons when you have a ship in the middle of nowhere...

I had an Intellivsion growing up as a kid. A few of them, I think as me and my brother wore them out. In all honesty, I believe that a 8-10 year old H_B would destroy anybody in a game of Sea Battle.

I was just. that. good.
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Old 07-26-2006, 03:11 PM   #36
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Originally Posted by AgustusM
Just wanted to chime in on how much I am enjoying this. I haven't even played half of these games, but your level of detail is fantastic and I too greatly remember the BBS days.

Agreed. This is really interesting Anxiety. I'm enjoying the writeups and screenshots as well.
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Old 07-26-2006, 03:15 PM   #37
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Thanks all!
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Old 07-26-2006, 03:52 PM   #38
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Reading as well, and very much enjoying it. Now I gotta see if I can get my hands on some of these classics.

Question for you though: Do you have this list already made up? Or are you putting this together as you go?
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Old 07-26-2006, 03:55 PM   #39
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I made up the list ahead of time.
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Old 07-26-2006, 06:51 PM   #40
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Without further ado, let's head to the first game on our countdown from the same creators as a previous game:

21. Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars
3DO/New World Computing
PC
1996
GameSpot Review - 8.2
Strategy



http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/heroe...2_gold_edition




The GameSpot evaluation is a travesty, in my opinion. They gave HOMM3 a 9.1 and even the woefully problematic MOMM4 an 8.6, but HOMM2, which is absolutely the definitive version of the game just got a 8.2.

When you read the review of the third game, it's almost like they admit their mistake in evaluating the second game so badly. Here's a quote:

Quote:
Best known for its long running Might and Magic role-playing series, New World has since created the offshoot Heroes of Might and Magic turn-based strategy series, which has nearly eclipsed its role-playing progenitor with the sheer amount of critical and popular acclaim it's earned. It's no coincidence - the Heroes formula is one of the most brilliant strategy game designs ever conceived, with its careful blend of micro- and macromanagement within a distinctive fantasy setting.

This shows that HOMM2 was an amazing game and recognized as such, despite the poor GameSpot rating. You don't say, "(O)ne of the most brillant strategy game designs ever conceived" unless you mean it or you're full of it. I think the former is true in this case.


What is HOMM2 all about then? Heroes of Might and Magic is a strategy game with several levels. You begin by selecting a "caste" but its not really like that. You can be a Warlock with a town that makes Hydras, Gargoyles, Centaurs and more. Or, you can be a Necromancer with a town that makes Zombies, Skeletons, and more undead. There are several choices.

Then you can select a Might or a Magic hero, unless you chose Barbarians, because they don't get Magic heroes. The Might heroes specialize in helping their armies win through arms while Magic heroes specialize in learning and casting spells.

As you adventure, your hero learns and gains experience. They will have an opportunity to learn new skills and advance in those they already know. Magic Power, Magic Knowledge, Tracking and Pathfinding, Morale, and more are all skills your hero can learn.

Your heroes also will likely accumulate various artifacts with a variety of effects. These gadgets and trinkets can sometimes wrest victory from the jaws of defeat. While adventuring, you can also come across a variety of fountains, huts, towers, ruins, and more, and all of them are different, with effects, items, information, and such.

So, on one level, you have one or more heroes traipsing through the wilderness and gaining expereince, skills, and items in an RPG sort of way. That's one level.

Here is a pic of the overland map with the hero adventuring through it:



One the next level you have resource management. There are a lot of resources in the game (gold, wood, iron, crystal, mercury, crystal and sulfur). There are mines and raw materials in the world and you need to harvest them so you can get certain monsters in your army and certain buildings in your town. On a second level, the game is about resource managment.

On a third level, the game is about town management. You have a town with a variety of buildings you can build, and you will slowly figure out what to build. Some buildings allow you to recruit monsters. If you are a Wizard town, and you build a Golem Foundry, then you can begin recruiting golems. Later, you can upgrade the Golem Foundry and recruit more powerful golems. Likewise, you can build a Mage's tower and being recruiting Magi. Later, you can upgrade the tower and begin recruiting Archmagi.

Some buildings may help with resource gathering. The Sorceress town has a crystal fountain that makes a bit of crystal each game week. You can build a a statue that brings in a bit more gold each week.

Yet other buildings help your hero. All towns can build a Mage's Guild levels one through five. Each level allows your heroes to get a spellbook if they need one and learn spells up to the level of their magic proficiency. High level spells can alter the course of battle with one go.

Here is a fully built up Barbarian town:



Therefore, the game is also a city management game.

Lastly, there is the army management and battle level. You are recruting monsters in an army that your hero leads, but does not fight in. Your hero will add to the battle prowess of your army, and some skills come into play during battle. Once per round, your hero can cast a spell or take another action, like firing a bow into the fray.

Your units are in stacks and are move as a unit, fastest unit first, in a turn based setting similar to chess. Units can move, and attack. Some units are archer units and can fire a weapon. Some can fly anywhere on the map and attack. Tons of units have special abilities. For example, the Crusader attacks twice and the Unicorn, in addition to attacking, has a chance to Blind the defending unit afterwards.

After attacking a unit, it then has a chance to counterattack. Therefore, you have to be careful who you attack. After a unit has counter attacked once, it will not be able to counter again until it next takes a turn. This gives you an opportunity to get in a few free hits.

Here combat is being waged in the desert. This is at the beginning of combat, and the player on the right has three units of Titans and two units of Archmagi - all ranged combatants. You can see the chess-like grid that covers the area. Monsters have a range they can move.



There are two factors helping or hurting your army - morale and luck. You could get positive or negative luck through spells cast, items and hero abilities. When luck struck, you would either deal double or half damage (based on whether you were lucky or unlucky.

Like luck, you could either have positive or negative morale. Some monsters never benefited from or suffered from morale. A negative morale would cause a unit to lose its turn and a positive morale gave it a seocnd turn after it completed its first. There were more factors that affected morale than luck. If your army was all from one faction or caste type, it got a morale bonus. The more troops from different factions were added to the army, the more morale would drop. Living creatures fighting alongside undead would suffer a massive morale drop.

As you can hopefully see, the game was a complex combination of a variety of elements that came together to give it a tapestry that really felt like it fully involved you. There are tons of things I haven't mentioned, little details. For example, you could sail at sea with a boat. You could capture other cities through sieges that were much different than normal combat. There were dungeon places onteh map where you had to defeat a certain number of monsters in order to raid the spot. There was a necromancy skill that allowed the hero to raise a certain percentage, based on skill level, of killed monsters as skeletons. This is just the prophetic tip of the iceberg.

Multiplayer is great with the game, and I loved playing it hotseat.

I hope you can see the detail that this game provided. In fact, the most recent iteration, HOMM5 was released a few months ago. They've added a lot since HOMM2, like underground travel, new cities, new monsters, and a 3D overland view. Still, the HOMM2 game was the absolute essential version of the game. It was the one that got the formula down.


-Anxiety


EDIT: I forgot one thing. The music. The music is amazing, and sometimes I'll just play the disc as a music disc. The music writer wrote these classical piece for the game, and many of them are OPERA. If you think I'm kidding, I'm not. The operatic parts of the soundtrack makes the HOMM2 soundtrack one of the most distinctive in all video games.
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Old 07-26-2006, 07:10 PM   #41
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Fun thread- just wanted to get in a post so I see when it's bumped

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Old 07-26-2006, 07:11 PM   #42
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One little interesting tidbit about the list. The events in the HOMM2 campaigns happen about twenty years before M&M6. You are playing in the same world, on the same continent, with a handful of the same characters involved in both.
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Old 07-26-2006, 07:19 PM   #43
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HoMM2 was definitely the best in the series. The others seemed puzzle-heavy from what I remember, though again, I could be wrong.

Necromancy is my favourite skill, no question about it. Nothing like turning your own enemies' troops against them.

A more interesting debate would be whether HoMM series or AoW series is better.
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Old 07-26-2006, 10:25 PM   #44
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I know that some may choose other entries in this series, like VII or IV, but for my money, no game in the series was more impactful, no console game as complex as:

20. Final Fantasy
SquareSoft
Nintendo
1990
GameSpot Review - 8.8 (Again, this is the player aggregate reviews because there was never an official review of FF)
RPG





As I mentioned above, I think the original adventure in the series is still the top notch one. It allows you to play your own characters, instead of forcing them on you. And it doesn't have that damn talking red dog from VII that joins your party.

Final Fantasy is the best game ever produced for the NES, bar none. No game was as pretty, no game as deep, and no game as complex as Final Fantasy. Simply put, it was the top dog of the system.

Final Fantasy was one of the great classic RPGs of the early days of video games. An expansive world, for its time, met a solid plot and a large variety of dungeons, landscapes and more.




I remember going up against the first dungeon, that castle with Garland. I had spent some time levelling up, exploring, talking to people, and finally marching to the dungeon and taking out Garland. Then the bridge was built to the rest of the continent and I walked onto that bridge and the scene cut away and I found out that the few few hours were designed as a preview. That was amazing, and that moment of wonder stuck with me.

I loved that you could play whatever game you wanted at whatever pace you wanted. You could go anywhere so long as that area had been "opened up" in the game. Wander around, fight monsters, level up - it was great! And then you delved into dungeons with the intent of exploring every nook and cranny. There were a ton of unique items in these dungeons, and you wanted every one.

I still remember the difficulty of the Marsh Cave. I had to have gone into there 15-20 times before I finally emerged with the itme that Astos, the dark elf in disguise needed.

When you gained a ship, didn't you just sail everywhere, trying to see where you could land?


When you gained the airship, didn't you do likewise, learning every island in the map?

This was a masterpiece of gaming design. The beauty was that it was very replayable because you could take a party each time. I beat the game with a fighting intensive party and then with an all spell casting party, and even a one player game, recently. (In the one player game, you let everyone get killed except for one player and then you never res them. You play that one player for the entire game. It's a very interesting challenge.)

The monsters had a diverse range of characteristics.




You had to balance money for items against money for spells, which seemed really pricey in the mid game.


The Liche:




Final Fantasy was so successful that it kept a dying computer game copany afloat and launched arguably the single most important franchise in video game history. It certainly is the third biggest selling franchise. That's a pretty impressive resume for an NES game that was released in America near the end of the system's life.

It remains a beautiful, enchanting game to this day (I have the GBA version still.) Final Fantasy was truly landmark for console systems in its depth. It acheived a complexity and was really the only challenge to contemporary PC games because of it (as opposed to today, when there are tons of console games as deep). Final Fantasy was truly a remarkable game for that reason alone.

-Anxiety
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Old 07-26-2006, 10:54 PM   #45
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The original Final Fantasy was also the single most difficult game in the series.

You had to plan out your attacks perfectly, or you'd end up wasting a turn killing an enemy that wasn't there.

And oh man, that last end battle was a pain that involved a lot of luck. The day I beat that game was one of the most exciting in my childhood.

The end battles in the other FF games have been, by and large, a considerable disappointment in terms of difficulty.
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Old 07-26-2006, 11:11 PM   #46
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First time I've had to, but I have to strongly disagree on a couple of accounts with this one:

1) I just don't rate the production values that highly. The game balance was positively awful (hours of creeps and ogres, anyone?). The gameplay was good, but there were other RPGs that were also quite good (Dragon Warrior series, in particular). The translation was nothing to write home about either, but we're splitting hairs at that point- nothing had good translations back in the day. If I were talking production values, especially attention to detail, SMB3 takes the NES cake and it's not even close.

2) If you're going to pick a Final Fantasy, this would be about 4th on my list. IV (II) and VI (III) would top it for production values, particularly III as a total package. Tho, if Chrono Trigger is higher on the list, I suppose I could see a reason for wanting an earlier game. I'd even rate VII higher for purely influential reasons, much as I can't stand playing the game. In the grand scheme of things, FF didn't break a lot of ground and very few things followed it- it was a good singular showing but the mould was never really used for much after it.

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Old 07-27-2006, 12:01 AM   #47
Abe Sargent
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Dragon Warrior? Dragon Warrior was one of the most monotonous RPGs I've ever played. (Looking at comtemporaries)

Final Fantasy was good. Ogres and Creeps were only in one section of the fiorest, and that was a good place to level up, so you went there, but you didn't have to. Nothing stopped you from going somewhere else - they were just the most powerful guys around.

Most players now know (I discovered it without reading a tip list, btw) that there is a peninsula way to the east and north of Drakovia or whatever the name of that city is where at the tip you can fight monsters WAY ahead of where you are supposed to be and get levels and gold like mad. So on replay, there isn't even a need to level in the Ogre/Creep forest around Elfheim or whatever that city is named.

-Anxiety
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Old 07-27-2006, 12:02 AM   #48
Abe Sargent
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Oh, and remember II and III were SNES games, and its not really fair to compare the production values of an NES game against an SNES game. Plus, I hate an RPG that forces what character you have, what skills they have, when to use them, and so forth. I find it very annoying. There was none of that in the first volume and that was a serious problem to my mind, in later FF games. I hate being dragged around by the nose, I just want a world with a plot line and a "good luck."

-Anxiety
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Old 07-27-2006, 01:19 AM   #49
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Anxiety
I hate being dragged around by the nose, I just want a world with a plot line and a "good luck."

-Anxiety

then i bet an Elder Scrolls game is coming up on this list somewhere
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Old 07-27-2006, 01:44 AM   #50
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Havok
then i bet an Elder Scrolls game is coming up on this list somewhere

Ah, but which one will it be? That's the fun with this list. That plus waiting to see if my old favorites make the list, of course.

Keep it up, Anxiety. Lovin' this.
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