Pick one game to play again like it was new...

[Blackadar]

(OO started a thread on this...thought it would be fun here)

Take any game you've played - which one would you like to go back and open the box again for the very first time? Assume technology isn't a factor. What's the one game you would like to have your memory wiped, be handed a sealed box, open it up and start playing the game?

There's so many choices...so let's get some of the easy choices out of the way:

I enjoyed Planescape: Torment as much the 2nd time as I did the first - perhaps moreso, because I could understand the story better. Civ 2 was just as good on rounds 2, 3, 4 and many more as it was the first time. So was X-Com. In fact, I'd daresay that Civ 2 and X-Com were much better after learning how to play the game. As was MOO and MoM.

Some of the harder ones:

I really loved Wing Commander the first time around. Especially with the speech pack. Great immersive story. Baldur's Gate was better the first go-around. But it was difficult and I think I enjoyed the 2nd time just as much with the exception of Gorion dying. KOTOR's twist was just amazing, but I went back and played as a "dark side" character. I'm not sure much can compare to seeing HOMM3 for the first time, but it's not the top one on my list.

For me, I'd probably go with Ultima 7. The opening "Avatar, know that Britannia has entered into a new age of enlightenment" was one of my favorite gaming moments. Once in the game, the opening death scene just was an incredible introduction to the gameworld. There was a discovery around every corner. There was a great plotline that kept me in the game but never entirely revealed itself. There were all these little magical things in the game, things like the flying carpet, the chase for the murderers, the potential love interest, the wisp house, the Guardian, seeing the difference between the rich and the poor and so forth that really made that gameworld for me. There were incredible fights, sailing ships and a pretty darned interactive gameworld (bake your own bread!). NPCs went home at night to sleep.

Playing it again did not recapture the magic of the first time. So even though it's not my favorite RPG, this is the one game I'd love to go back and play again - for the first time.

[Arles]

Probably the original Might and Magic game. I remember playing that with a group of friends on my original CPU for hours and hours at a time. When it was released, it was ahead of its time from an RPG standpoint with the ability to change towns, climates and wander the outside world. At the time, most fantasy RPGs were strict dungeon crawls with very little change in overall scenery.

[davidlando1]

Starflight, the original PC version. EA made it back in 1986. No game has ever captured my imagination more.

[miked]

Originally Posted by Arles

Probably the original Might and Magic game. I remember playing that with a group of friends on my original CPU for hours and hours at a time. When it was released, it was ahead of its time from an RPG standpoint with the ability to change towns, climates and wander the outside world. At the time, most fantasy RPGs were strict dungeon crawls with very little change in overall scenery.

Damn you! I was going to say that, but I'm also down for Might and Magic 2. With the ending where you have to decipher the preamble to the constitution (IIRC).

Others were:
Ancient Art of War (and War at Sea)
Microleague 2 (with the stat compiler).
The 2nd Front Page Sports Football (I forgot what year).

So many hours of my life lost...

[CamEdwards]

Civ II or Baldur's Gate II.

[markprior22]

Strat O Matic baseball (board game) when I was 12. I wanted that game so bad and it was everything I hoped for at that time ('75).

[MJ4H]

Easy for me:

X-Wing
Master of Orion

[condors]

after giving it some thought..Bandit Kings of Ancient China

sure i replayed it a bunch of times but winning it for the first time and getting the "you won movie" was a classic and its was never the same after that.

[WSUCougar]

Off the top of my head I'd have to say Combat Mission. The expectations I had were quite high, but they were met (and then some). It was a definite "wow" situation.

[AlexB]

Gauntlet for the Spectrum
The Double - soccer management sim, also on the Spectrum

Madden 94 on the Mega Drive
Fifa 94 on the Mega Drive

CM97/98 PC

All classics in their own right!

[Blackadar]

Oh, my #2 choice: Fallout. The time limit for finding the water thingy for the vault. Going back out into the world. The different areas and cultures. The final resolution in front of the vault (not being allowed back in). The end cutscenes...yowsa.

[Bee]

X-COM hands down for me.

[spleen1015]

Master of Orion for sure.

I remember seeing screenshots in one of the gaming mags back then. I read the article 600 times and looked at those screens every day. I bet I have played 1000 games of MOO.

It is funny. After I got X-COM to work with DOS-Box, I went and downloaded MOO. When I played it so much when it first game out, I couldn't get the sound to work. So, I played without it. With DOS-Box, I have sound!

Other than OOTP, I don't think there has been a game I've played more. MOO in 1993 was heaven!

[MizzouRah]

Wasteland for the C64 - that game was so much fun.

FPS Baseball and Football '96. Just reading about these games over and over in the Sierra magazine that was mailed quarterly got me all giddy.


Todd

[Abe Sargent]

Ultima Online. In my opinion, there's never been as immersive a MMORPG, and after playing UO for several years, I couldn't stand the simple level-based hack and slash RPG-lite games that passed as being int he same genre as UO.

I'd love to start it all over again, tons of people all learning the game at the same time, the danger of reds a real threat but one rarely seen, no websites dedicated to the stats of every creature, no guides on how to level up every skill, just a falvorful world full of people and potential. That'd be great to go back to, when Role-Playing was something more than levels and stats, where expert and new characters alike were relatively similar, and where you can re-establish the newness of the world.

-Anxiety

[John Galt]

Starcon 2, Civ, or Baseball Mogul for me.

[Calis]

X-Com I have to agree actually got better after I'd played it a few times.

Freespace 2 jumps to mind pretty quickly just because it was such a ride going through that. Good story, great action, I couldn't stop playing it when I started. Not quite the same going through it again. Grim Fandango is another one, Maniac Mansion, any great adventure game falls into this category easily.

Dark Age of Camelot is another one just because it was my first true graphical MMORPG, with a big group of friends playing it. We had a blast those first couple months playing that together, getting a guild set up and all that jazz. Then it all went sour.

Speaking of MMORPG's, let me also add in the ORIGINAL Neverwinter Nights. That was my first online game and man oh man was that good stuff. I played the crap out of that game when I was a kid, and have some horrible hourly interent bills to prove it. Parents didn't appreciate the game nearly as much as me. Think that was the first graphical MMORPG wasn't? Good old Gold Box games.

A lot of good choices already here, Planescape, Fallout, Wasteland, agree.

Ughh, now I have to play Freespace 2 again damn it.

[condors]

i agree with the orignal NWN but the 3 bucks an hour to play always limited me

[Radii]

I think i'd have to go with the CM series, with Civ a close second. The complete awe I felt realizing I'd found the perfect sports sim with CM is something that can't ever be repeated.

[Maple Leafs]

As always, with any of these sorts of questions, my answer is Earl Weaver Baseball. Man, what a great game.

But given the specific question, another one that comes to mind is the original Resident Evil on the Playstation. A few of us tried it out one night (somebody an unplayed copy lying around in their collection) and ended up staying up most of the night with it. We just hadn't seen anything like it before. And unlike a lot of great games, RE1 doesn't really hold up especially well in hindsight -- there are plenty of flaws that aren't so noticable the first time through, but that can make it almost unplayable when you try to go back to it.

[SackAttack]

The original SimCity for me. That game ate months of my life. The cure?

SimCity 2000.

[Arctus]

Master of Orion, with Europa Universalis and Jagged Alliance 2 close seconds.

[ice4277]

Either CM3 or Final Fantasy VII.

[Greyroofoo]

Command and Conquer

[DaddyTorgo]

I can't believe no one has said DOOM. Original DOOM was incredible. I still get the urge to play it sometimes these days, it was just so great!

[Sublime 2]

Earl Weaver Baseball - Spent hours manually typing in every player and their stats
Front Page Sports Football 96 - Wish that game never went away

[TroyF]

System Shock 2. One of the most underrated games in history IMO.

[JPhillips]

Civ2.

But there was an EA NHL game that I loved to play on my Sega. I'm thinking it was '93 or '94. You could get extra speed right before a hit and leave players sprawling on the ice. I used to love to see how many hits I could deliver in one game.

[TargetPractice6]

Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy Tactics would be my top two. I really can't decide between the two.

[MrBug708]

Colonization

[MIJB#19]

I have no idea how to break the tie between:
Sensible World of Soccer 95/96 ECE (PC)
and
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GameBoy)

[jeff061]

Tie between Under a Killing Moon and The Pandora Directive. These games are genius, it's a shame they don't make them anymore. They came out in like 92 and 94 I think. The Pandora Directive, which was simply a work of art, stands up to the best today has to offer.

After those two, Doom, what a first impression that left.

[JeeberD]

FOF2

[Alf]

Sensible World of Soccer
Speed Ball (or Speed Ball 2)
Dungeon Master
Wolfenstein 3D (the first FPS !)
Doom

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Alf

Wolfenstein 3D (the first FPS !)

There was an Intellivision cartridge from the early 80's called ADvANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS(tm) Treasure of Tarmin. Check it out, and you'll be surprised at the first person shooter ness of it. (You have a bow and sword and you fight monsters in first person perspective). I've heard experts int he field call it the first FPS. They may be wrong, there may be something earlier, but that's what I've heard.

-Anxiety

[Alf]

Anxiety, you may be right, but from what I remember (I was very into games at that time), it was the first "3D FPS".

Time to google your game . Screenshots

Ah, I see. To me, it's just another adventure game from the 80s like "The Pawn". It vey much is like "Dungeon Master" I was speaking about. A 2D featuring 3D like view, but not real 3D. Tou can't rotate, you just move from square to square within a map.

I still say Wolfenstein 3D ! screenshots

Edit : an interesting FPS historical article where they talk about mid 70s games Spasim and Maze War (which I did play on some SUN servers at the uni, indeed, fps game)

[DanGarion]

Come on... Half Life, hands down. Especially if it was launched today with all the Mods already out there (Day of Defeat, Team Fortress Classic, Counterstrike)

[bob]

Maniac Mansion - figuring everything out the first time was great....

[cthomer5000]

FOF2001

second would probably be Jet Grind Radio... it's the only game that as a (semi)adult has really grabbed me with its originality.