The official Piss All Over Everyone's Top 20 Thread

[Strazos]

I'm really bad with finishing games. If I get out of the habit of playing a game, it usually takes me awhile to get back to it.

I didn't even try to play SotC in one play (I was watching lots of different anime at the time), so for whatever reason, I forgot to go back and finish it.
Same thing happened with Persona 3. I'm at the final night in the tower, but I haven't hauled my ass to the basement to boot it up and finish it.

I have a lot of unfinished games. I might possibly have even more games sitting in a stack that I've never loaded up.


And no, I don't want to hear about your lists again; you're just nuts. 

[Jain Zar]

My list is heavily slanted towards RPG and Strategy games.  Which makes sense considering those are my favorite fucking genres.
PC has the most of my favorite games, but only 25% of the list.  NES has 3, C64 has 2.  I don't have much of a system bias.

The games/series I didn't put on the list but are still ones I thought deserving, and why I did not:

Galaga:  Its awesome and still one of the best SHMUPS ever made.  However Its a nibble game.  I can't play it for hours.
GI Joe (Arcade) : One of the best rail shooters ever made, utterly fantastic.  But its a shortass arcade game with the usual quarter eating philosophy.
Gundam Zeonic Front: Amazingly cool squad based mech game.  But its wierd to control and rather bizarre.
Metroid Zero Mission: Best Metroidvania game bar none.  But its over too soon.
X Com: Its fun to begin with, but even awesome gets tedious if YOU CAN'T EVER FINISH IT.  Too many filler battles.
Soul Edge/Calibur series: Favorite 3d fighter, but its a fun short button masher, not an all time gaming epic.  Plus the later games are more about bouncing boobs than gameplay.
Gladius: A new take on the SRPG that worked.  But its not quite compelling enough to bring home the bacon.
Resident Evil series: Its more fun than many of its design decisions say it should be, but its still flawed in places.
Bomberman: Another great series that is mostly best in nibbles.
Bust a Move/Puzzle Bobble: Its great fun and my favorite puzzler, but its another nibble game.
AD&D Gold Box: Fantastic for its day, but many of the design decisions DO NOT stand up to modern gameplay sensibilities.
Street Fighter 2 and other SNK & Capcom derivatives: Its fun and I still adore Chun Li, but it doesn't grab me to play it the way other games on the list do.
Front Mission: Awesome mech TBS, but each game has these little annoyances in them that keep it from being a king...
HERO: Best Activision game EVER, but only in its C64 incarnation. 
Panzer Dragoon Saga:  A legendary game almost deserving of its ebay pricing, but its still just a 20 hour game I havent ever had the urge to replay.  I bet the late 90s 320 x resolution would be painful these days.

Now some system skips and why, since its easier than listing every good game for it I skipped: (Im not listing butt systems.  Ones that actually have worthwhile games.)
Atari 2600-7800 : The hardware and gameplay are RARELY both there.  Too primitive in both categories most of the time.  Only Imagic and Activision games are even worth playing anymore.  And Gremlins on the 5200.  If you can get the system less reliable than an X Box 360 working...
Sega Master System : Very few must play games.  A couple goodies (Ys, Phantasy Star, Mickey Mouse and the Castle of Illusion..), but the system was awkward in all respects.  It meant well...
Dreamcast: See Master System with polygons.  Lots of good games, not many GREAT ones.
Playstation: Like the Dreamcast on an EPIC scale.  Tons of good games, but few I want to play again these days.  What the 2600 was to pixels, the PS1 is to polygons.  It could do them, but not well enough to be very enjoyable.
Wii: Its too new to have many classics.  Plenty of fun to be had though.
Gameboy: The pre color ones were HORRIBLE MACHINES that never deserved any popularity.  The color era was a mess of kiddie liscense crap thanks to Pokemon's popularity making the lime green blurry shitbox popular nearly 10 years after release.  Color followed up on this hell.
Nintendo DS: Many great games, but few classics as of yet.
N64: THE N 64 WAS A PIECE OF SHIT AND ITS MOST BELOVED GAMES WERENT THAT GOOD.  They look even worse by modern eyes.
PSP: BWAHAHAHA.  A couple good games but good doesn't cut it for this kind of list.

[voodoolily]

N64: THE N 64 WAS A PIECE OF SHIT AND ITS MOST BELOVED GAMES WERENT THAT GOOD.  They look even worse by modern eyes.

See, you're just wrong. Games for the N64 may look ass now, but the games were great at the time and much of my list is derived from the many, many hours squandered on Rare's catalog and the two Zelda and two Mario games, when I should've been studying. So kindly crawl back into your hole, and learn about punctuation.

[naum]

I hate FPS.
I loved my Dreamcast.
I want to like Civ4, but after installing and wiping from HD on 3 non-consecutive occasions, it's not likely. But I didn't really like Civ3 much either until is was completely patched up (which included 2 expansion packs).
I loathe having to put a CD or DVD in to play a game.

[Jain Zar]

N64: THE N 64 WAS A PIECE OF SHIT AND ITS MOST BELOVED GAMES WERENT THAT GOOD.  They look even worse by modern eyes.

See, you're just wrong. Games for the N64 may look ass now, but the games were great at the time and much of my list is derived from the many, many hours squandered on Rare's catalog and the two Zelda and two Mario games, when I should've been studying. So kindly crawl back into your hole, and learn about punctuation.

No.  No they weren't.  There were two good games on the thing.  One of them was Tetris Attacks, only done up with Pokemans, and Paper Mario. Goldeneye was shit.  Perfect Dark was shit.  I sold mine back in the day, for some reason got another one to play Paper Mario.

FPSes sucked back then on it too.  Control was pure ass.  Camera buttons and that analog stick do not a solid control scheme make.

But the Rare guys left and made the Timesplitters games which for some reason are underrated.  Its like they are PUNISHED from learning from their mistakes or something....

[Yegolev]

I'm going to say it.  Daggerfall > Morrowind > Oblivion.  This is objective fact.

Timesplitters was unnaturally good.

[Margalis]

I can think of a lot of fun N64 games:

MarioKart
Mario 64
Both Zeldas
F-Zero X (the best F-Zero by far, my favorite N64 game)
WaveRace
Conker's Bad Fur Day

I'm not a big fan of console FPS so I left those off, though most people would include them.

[stray]

I think I just had one 64 game on my list (Pilot Wings).

[Sutro]

I so gotta stick up for GoldenEye here. Tons of hours played with my buds in its multiplayer. I wasn't a huge fan of the single player missions, but the diversity of weaponry and tactics in multiplayer simply rocked.

[Jain Zar]

I so gotta stick up for GoldenEye here. Tons of hours played with my buds in its multiplayer. I wasn't a huge fan of the single player missions, but the diversity of weaponry and tactics in multiplayer simply rocked.

Multiplayer is why I loathe Goldeneye.  Its terrible.  The N64 controller makes the game horrible.  For solo mission stealth action it wasn't too bad for its day.  Trying to deathmatch with it is about as much fun as getting wisdom teeth pulled.
CAMERA BUTTONS DO NOT MAKE FOR QUALITY AIMING CONTROLS.

Maybe I am being mean because at the same time I was using the tight mouse keyboard control of Quake 2 which was silky smooth, natural, and LIKE BUTTAH. 

It was funny watching people who loved Goldeneye and Perfect Dark try to play FPSes on my computer.  10 seconds in and it was like watching a bad acid trip.  They wandered around and made me dizzy.  Subtle, smooth movements with constant solid aiming did not work for them.  They were used to the shitty controls of a game on a system utterly unable to run the game properly.

But as I mentioned, Timesplitters is basically the same game, only with a playable framerate, decent graphics, AND GOOD FUCKING CONTROLS.  Of course the PC hardcore hate analog stick shooting even more than I hate the N64 controller (whose only claim to fame is not being the Atari 5200 controller..) so they still hate it, but dual analog sticks took care of things nicely.  Pressing buttons to aim is not fun.  Actually doing ANYTHING with the N64 controller is not fun.  Its Nintendo's worst controller.  How the company responsible for the Advantage (which might have been made by Ascii but why worry?) and the Dogbone SNES could follow it up with such a clusterfuck is beyond me.  I would rather use the Dreamcast controller!

If Microsoft ever fucking adds Timesplitters Future Perfect to the 360 backwards compatibility list (least they finally added NFL 2K5..), I bet itll rock even harder since the 360 controller is a lovely thing and vastly superior to the PS2's patented SLIP N SLIDE sticks...

[Tebonas]

I hate FPS.
I loved my Dreamcast.
I want to like Civ4, but after installing and wiping from HD on 3 non-consecutive occasions, it's not likely. But I didn't really like Civ3 much either until is was completely patched up (which included 2 expansion packs).
I loathe having to put a CD or DVD in to play a game.

You would be a prime candidate for Fall from Heaven, though. I expect that should be right up your alley.

[cmlancas]

Multiplayer is why I loathe Goldeneye.  Its terrible.  The N64 controller makes the game horrible.  For solo mission stealth action it wasn't too bad for its day.  Trying to deathmatch with it is about as much fun as getting wisdom teeth pulled.
CAMERA BUTTONS DO NOT MAKE FOR QUALITY AIMING CONTROLS.

Maybe I am being mean because at the same time I was using the tight mouse keyboard control of Quake 2 which was silky smooth, natural, and LIKE BUTTAH. 

It was funny watching people who loved Goldeneye and Perfect Dark try to play FPSes on my computer.  10 seconds in and it was like watching a bad acid trip.  They wandered around and made me dizzy.  Subtle, smooth movements with constant solid aiming did not work for them.  They were used to the shitty controls of a game on a system utterly unable to run the game properly.

Uh. They were two different types of games. I'm sorry that apparently you sucked at Goldeneye but ruled at Q2. It's possible to be good at both, you know. Granted, I'll submit that the controls were a little wonky, but Goldeneye was one of the first games I ever completed -- full 007, all cheats, all levels unlocked. In short, it was unbelievably fun.

Some other N64 games you are willingly ignoring, that Marg didn't mention are, in no particular order, both ArmyMen titles, Vigilante8 (although it was buggy at times, the multiplayer was damn fun), KillerInstinct, Bomberman64, Clayfighter, DK64, original NFL Blitz, Quest64, San Fransisco Rush (Which I -still- see in arcades today), Starfox, SW:SotE (woohoo fuzzywomper!), and finally, and most egregiously ignored, Super Smash Brohters.

I'm not sure how you can ignore Smash Brothers without a superfail. 

[trias_e]

I don't know how you could include Quest 64 or Clayfighter without superfailing.

And Blast Corps is the best game on the N64.  Some of those other ones are certainly good too though.

[Sky]

Hai guyz. Sky here. I hate console games (not really, but in general). I hate shooters with controllers (really).

Goldeneye was fucking awesome.

[voodoolily]

Gah, I wasn't even talking about Goldeneye or Perfect Dark in the Rare clan. I think Jet Force Gemini was the only FPS I even played. I'm talking about Donkey Kong, Banjo Kazooie/Tooie and Conker's. Those games are all hilarious and fucking FUN and if you don't agree it's because you hate freedom.

[HaemishM]

Goldeneye singleplayer was decent. The multiplayer was ass of the highest magnitude. I cannot understand how anyone could play that with any enjoyment on a screen smaller than 42". But then my wife and her brother loved it.

Opinions, they do vary.

[Jain Zar]

Some other N64 games you are willingly ignoring, that Marg didn't mention are, in no particular order, both ArmyMen titles, Vigilante8 (although it was buggy at times, the multiplayer was damn fun), KillerInstinct, Bomberman64, Clayfighter, DK64, original NFL Blitz, Quest64, San Fransisco Rush (Which I -still- see in arcades today), Starfox, SW:SotE (woohoo fuzzywomper!), and finally, and most egregiously ignored, Super Smash Brohters.

I'm not sure how you can ignore Smash Brothers without a superfail. 

Lets go through the list: Army Men games?  ARMY MEN? 
Vigilante 8?  Never played it, was on the PS1 as well right?  That Interstate 7x spinoff series? 
Killer Instinct?  Played the original at the arcade and on the SNES, played 2 at the arcade.  Was fun at the time (the original, 2 was BALLS), is almost unplayable drek now.  Controls horribly.
Bomberman 64?  Dude, there are awesome Bomberman games on almost every console and computer since the NES.  Ive got it on the Gamecube, Dreamcast, 360, and Turbografx 16.  The TG16 version is the best.  Bomberman 93 still rocks.  No reason to play it on the 64 I can see, even back then.  (Wished I had the Saturn version with its holy fuck 10 players on 1 screen mode.  They should redo that now that widescreen TVs are becoming the norm..)
Clayfighter?  Ummm...
DK64?  Heard it was ok, never cared enough to find out.  If I don't find Mario 64 all that great, I doubt this one would be up my alley.
NFL Blitz was a great game.  Played it in the arcade, and had it for the PC.  Sadly, it was Voodoo only, and thus went away after a couple years.    Great game though.
Quest 64?  Ive heard so many BAD things about the game I never bothered.  A friend of mine loves it though.
San Fransisco Rush?  Never liked it much in the arcade, ignored all home versions.
Starfox 64?  It was mildly amusing for the 1 hour it took me to beat it after getting a used copy home from EB Games.  Id probably hate it if I had paid the usual 60 dollar N64 pricegouge.  Hell, I have trouble paying 60 for a game NOW.
Shadows the Empire: Heard it was ok with some good parts and lots of not so good bits.  And I could happily refight Hoth in almost every SW game since.  Hoth is to SW games what Normandy is to WW2 games..
Super Smash Brothers was nice, but nothing too compelling.  Its Gamecube sequel was sublime though.  A really good game.
(For whoever mentioned Conker: It was NOT A GOOD GAME.  Some dirty humor  failed to make up for shoddy control and infuriating level design.  FUCK THE TOWER LEVEL.)

Remember I got the N64 last.  I had a decent PC, PS1 and Sega Saturn before I got the 64.  They all had more and BETTER games of the kind I love.
The few good games on the N64 were either ports you could get elsewhere usually in a superior form, or games that were vastly overshadowed by their sequels on other systems.
I was also past the legal drinking age when the N64 came out, and my tastes were pretty much refining by that point.  The N64 has no meaning to me because I had access to all the machines and found it to be the worst of the lot.  The Saturn might have failed, but in my heart its LIGHT YEARS better than the N64 in quality and quantity of good solid games.  Hell, the much maligned N Gage (QD) has games I would never want to part with.

The N64 was a piece of shit.  I can probably get rid of the thing now and not miss anything.  Im pretty sure Paper Mario is on Virtual Console already, and Puzzle League/Tetris Attacks is available on the DS.

Those of you who liked it?  Rock on.  Just make sure I know who loved it so I can be sure to take your opinions on games I would enjoy with a grain of salt. 

[Yegolev]

Vigilante8 was shit.  An incredibly poor attempt to rip off Twisted Metal.

[Zetleft]

Damnit that post reminded me I totally forgot about Interstate 76.   Well hell now I gotta find room on my list again. 

[Ixxit]

I saw someone listed Alternate Reality: The Dungeon. I had a pirated copy of Alternate Reality: The City. No documentation, and permadeath. It was still just an amazing game. If I would have had the chance to play it more it would have made my list for sure.

Maybe you still can.

http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/

When I first saw the game listed here the other day, I was intrigued since I had never heard about it before so I did a little research. 

[Samwise]

HEY!  Tebonas had SunDog on his list too!  I was sure I was going to be the only one on that.   

I've been playing that one on the Steem emulator on and off.  It's still pretty dang good.

[Strazos]

My list needs fixing.

[5150]

Well the reason my list doesnt have much in the way of console titles is because I didnt really do consoles until the XBox. What struke my during my casual browse of the lists was that, after the C64 era, people either went console or ST/Amiga, dont recall [m]any lists featuring both.

My biggest complaint about [the older] consoles was the lack of backwards compatibility when a new one came out (which I get alot of with my 360 as it happens!). My brother owned a Sega Saturn (think he might still have it) which was great if all you wanted to do was reply the classic arcade machines (which was the only reason he had it to be fair)

Arcade games failed to feature because almost all of them are [by design?] short term games with not alot of longevity, I still enjoy playing the original Star Wars wire frame graphic arcade machine when I come across one but I wouldn't have listed it about the wire frame graphic Elite on the C64 (despite how I never really got the hang of docking until the filled wire fram version came out on the ST) because I prefer games to have a bit of 'depth' to them.

I was surprised that Elite (and/or it's sequals/derivatives) didnt get mentioned in more lists though

[stray]

Hmm, I think a lot of arcade machines have major longevity. Not in the way of sprawling 50 hour RPG epics, but in the way of just plain and simple challenges/puzzles and score keeping..Gaming in the strictest and purest sense of the word. Longevity and replayability like poker or chess. I don't think a game has to be some digital world one can flounder around in for weeks on end in order to be considered "long".

[Sky]

If I ever get back into professional recording, I'm putting a Double Dragon machine in the lounge.

[DraconianOne]

I was surprised that Elite (and/or it's sequals/derivatives) didnt get mentioned in more lists though

I included both Star Wars arcade and Elite in my list but primarily out of nostalgia reasons more than anything else.  Star Wars arcade was the first arcade machine I got totally engrossed in and Elite was the first game I lost hours and hours of my life to.  I played Frontier when it came out on the Amiga and there were some nice touches (like planet landing, buying different ships, missions and so on) but in the end it annoyed the hell out of me because I prefer a less realistic combat/flight model.  The whole Newtonian motion thing may well have given some geeks real stiffys but it just killed the fun for me.  Of all the derivative space trading games, X3: Reunion would top my list.  I know a lot of people gave Freelancer a lot of love but I just didn't really take to it as much.  Didn't help that it doesn't have native joystick control.

As far as space combat sims though, I was tempted to put Freespace 2 instead of X-Wing alliance because technically it's probably the better game but XW:A won out because of some very memorable moments and because of the whole flying into the Death Star thing.

[murdoc]

If I ever get back into professional recording, I'm putting a Double Dragon machine in the lounge.

No Double Dragon unfortunately, but I really want this in my basement: http://www.smlentertainment.com/products/arcadelegendslist.htm

[schild]

Arcade Legends is a piece of shit. Might as well spend a little cash on getting a cab in decent shape and making it a mamebox.

Double Dragon Machines are impossible to find in good shape.

[WayAbvPar]

I saw someone listed Alternate Reality: The Dungeon. I had a pirated copy of Alternate Reality: The City. No documentation, and permadeath. It was still just an amazing game. If I would have had the chance to play it more it would have made my list for sure.

Maybe you still can.

http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/

When I first saw the game listed here the other day, I was intrigued since I had never heard about it before so I did a little research. 

Right on! I need to find this kind of thing for Wizard's Crown and Darklands too. I seem to remember a WC site, but I never got the emulator running correctly.

[Miasma]

I just want to say that Bully is a fantastic game and if you put any of the GTA series on your list you should give it a try.  It doesn't have machine guns but it's every bit as clever and entertaining, plus, go-karts.

[Yegolev]

Right on! I need to find this kind of thing for Wizard's Crown and Darklands too. I seem to remember a WC site, but I never got the emulator running correctly.

Sup.  I just wanted to say that I have Darklands on CDROM.  I think I have lost the box but I still have the manual, which is pretty damn important if you ask me.  Runs well in DOSBox.

[Sky]

I just want to say that Bully is a fantastic game and if you put any of the GTA series on your list you should give it a try.  It doesn't have machine guns but it's every bit as clever and entertaining, plus, go-karts.

I don't think it moved enough units to merit a pc version, did it? I'd definitely pick it up if it hit the pc.

[WayAbvPar]

Right on! I need to find this kind of thing for Wizard's Crown and Darklands too. I seem to remember a WC site, but I never got the emulator running correctly.

Sup.  I just wanted to say that I have Darklands on CDROM.  I think I have lost the box but I still have the manual, which is pretty damn important if you ask me.  Runs well in DOSBox.

Did it ever get patched into complete playability? I remember some showstoppers back in the day, but goddamn that game was fun.

[Montague]

I saw someone listed Alternate Reality: The Dungeon. I had a pirated copy of Alternate Reality: The City. No documentation, and permadeath. It was still just an amazing game. If I would have had the chance to play it more it would have made my list for sure.

Maybe you still can.

http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/

When I first saw the game listed here the other day, I was intrigued since I had never heard about it before so I did a little research. 

Holy crap. I thought me and my buddy in high school were the only two people on Earth to ever play that game.

It wasn't in my list of "all-time best" but man, that game was ahead of its time. Open-ended exploration, a crude morality mechanic, and it even had some customization because IIRC the item files were unencrypted because I remember giving my character a "Razor of DOOM" or some nonsense.

We never even saw it in a store, we picked it up at one of those old-fashioned "disk exchange" enthusiast meetings.

Pool of Radiance (the original) was also pure awesome. 

[Strazos]

I just want to piss on my list.

I'm having a hard time in quantifying what criteria to use when selecting what to put on my list.

Just wondering, but how are you all determining what you put down? If you look at mine, I seem to be a bit schizophrenic in what I am using to validate my choices.

I mean, FFS, I put down Q2, but I only ever played it twice. Twice.




Also, I didn't see anyone put down FF7. Granted, I know US III gets a lot of love here, and I myself am not going to put it down, but still...I still think it's a pretty good game.