Taking a step back - What games back in the day were too good to review?

[PerfectDarkL33t]

Here's something that I thought would shine some light for what past gaming was like for the kids who only grew up playing Halo 2/3 & CoD.

I've been thinking a lot about game designing these days, and how there are so many short lived games on the market. There's really only about 1/10 games that players actually accrue a comfortable feel with, and can clock in some serious playtime, (yes, WoW is one of them).

But what were the ultimate games you grew up with that, no matter what ANYONE said about it, you just couldn't say any negative thing about?


to start it off for me, it was definitely playing Risk on my SEGA Genesis with my dad. It really got me into the concept of a larger scale for everything at a young age, and to think with a larger perspective. I think playing Risk allowed me to start playing RTS games at a young age. Ever since we had the SEGA version, our family has made into a family "must play" when we all get together again. It's just too bad that we don't have the old Genesis that we grew up with anymore.


The Sonic games we're also a family favorite on the SEGA, I loved the Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2 and 3, and when Sonic & Knuckles came out, it was my new favorite.

We had an old Windows 98 computer, and I've clocked countless hours into Beachhead, Mech-Warrior, Tomb Raider 1 & 2, and a Star Wars ship fighter game, (we had the COOLEST Joystick for it) also there was a certain 3rd person over the head sci-fi shooter that I could never find the name of, but was like rated M or was really gory or something, so I couldn't play it very much.


But Lego Rockraiders... OMG. Best game I ever played on the computer, and I think I clocked in way too many hours than I should have. I definitely stayed up past my bedtime playing this game way too many times. This had to be my first REAL RTS game, and I've been trying to run it with Windows 7 for years, but even in compatibility mode it won't start for me.

I'm going to skip the Nintendo 64 stage, since mostly all of the cliche N64 games will show up. However, there was Extreme-G, a futuristic motorcycle game. It seems like nobody has heard of it, but I loved spending hours split screening the battle mode with my older brother.
Cover if anyone's ever played it.


When we finally moved up to a Playstation, (we actually rented a Playstation 1 for a few months before we actually bought one, when you could still rent game consoles from Blockbuster) and I fell in love with Syphon Filter as my first game. Played it SO much, but it was so hard to figure out sometimes, and I remember getting stuck for hours in certain places in it. That wasn't a downside to me though, since it was such a fun challenge.


But absolutely NOTHING beats Spyro the Dragon 2 - Rypto's Rage.
I seriously have clocked at least 1000 hours into replaying that game over the past decade. It's been my all time favorite storyline game, and I don't think I will ever retire from it until I die.

-------------------------

So, my question to you MMO-Champion, what games did you play on older systems, (PS2/Xbox is the cutoff) that defined your childhood?
I wanna make a list so I can go to my local Pawn Shop and see what I should pick up.

[Flaks]

Jet Force Gemini was a great game as was the Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis. I remember playing that when I was 9. SOOOO BADASSSS!

[Chouzan]

Interstate '76. Did the whole online thing with it, modding communities were enormous, which created issues if you didn't know where to go for legit-only games, but otherwise was incredible. The expansion pack, Nitro, was I believe the first game I ever did the old archaic version of pre-ordering with, which was basically mailing in your money to get the same-day release, because getting it in stores was nearly impossible and other online distributors hardly existed at all.

Also, Shining Force 1/2, but I think every reviewer of retro games has made it well known that they are treasures. Some days I lay awake at night touching myself with the dream of a back to form full-on Shining strategy game. None of this hack and slash stuff, no 3 person parties. Just some old school love. Update it to the modern age with some bigger systems and whatnot and go from there.

[Roose]

You bring up a good point about the sheer number of games being made and how few are actually picked up and played to a level of enjoyment. In my opinion that is what killed gaming for me for a very long time. Games now are not the pick-up-and-play games that I grew up with. We went from zero buttons and just joysticks and a paddle, to using 2 joysticks and 8 or more buttons.

This is why I still say that most new games today, despite all the bells and whistles, lack the fun factor that actually gets you enjoying the game right away. Not after you spend a few hours learning the controls. Maybe it is much easier for kids raised on xbox and playstation to play these new games.

Tecmo Super Bowl will forever be the greatest game in history in my mind. Followed by Contra, Frogger, and Pac-Man.

[Klingers]

Super Mario Brothers 3 on the NES. Super Mario Allstars on the SNES.

[Kuntantee]

First Tomb Riader was revolutionary

[wariofan1]

Except for the fact that I was piss scared of the first boss, there was nothing bad about this game.



No need to explain.



Basically the best Digimon game, and one of the only good ones. They should have kept it this way instead of making it a turn-based RPG.

[PizzaSHARK]

Hmm. Castlevania 2 definitely ranks up there. A lot of people didn't like it but I loved it, much moreso than the first and third games, and I don't think anyone would be willing to say it didn't have a fantastic soundtrack.

[Beefz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_Rash Definitely one of my fondest memories, playing Road rash on the Saga Mega-CD and then the PS1

[AdriWar]

Here's something that I thought would shine some light for what past gaming was like for the kids who only grew up playing Halo 2/3 & CoD.

I've been thinking a lot about game designing these days, and how there are so many short lived games on the market. There's really only about 1/10 games that players actually accrue a comfortable feel with, and can clock in some serious playtime, (yes, WoW is one of them).

But what were the ultimate games you grew up with that, no matter what ANYONE said about it, you just couldn't say any negative thing about?


to start it off for me, it was definitely playing Risk on my SEGA Genesis with my dad. It really got me into the concept of a larger scale for everything at a young age, and to think with a larger perspective. I think playing Risk allowed me to start playing RTS games at a young age. Ever since we had the SEGA version, our family has made into a family "must play" when we all get together again. It's just too bad that we don't have the old Genesis that we grew up with anymore.


The Sonic games we're also a family favorite on the SEGA, I loved the Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2 and 3, and when Sonic & Knuckles came out, it was my new favorite.

We had an old Windows 98 computer, and I've clocked countless hours into Beachhead, Mech-Warrior, Tomb Raider 1 & 2, and a Star Wars ship fighter game, (we had the COOLEST Joystick for it) also there was a certain 3rd person over the head sci-fi shooter that I could never find the name of, but was like rated M or was really gory or something, so I couldn't play it very much.


But Lego Rockraiders... OMG. Best game I ever played on the computer, and I think I clocked in way too many hours than I should have. I definitely stayed up past my bedtime playing this game way too many times. This had to be my first REAL RTS game, and I've been trying to run it with Windows 7 for years, but even in compatibility mode it won't start for me.

I'm going to skip the Nintendo 64 stage, since mostly all of the cliche N64 games will show up. However, there was Extreme-G, a futuristic motorcycle game. It seems like nobody has heard of it, but I loved spending hours split screening the battle mode with my older brother.
Cover if anyone's ever played it.


When we finally moved up to a Playstation, (we actually rented a Playstation 1 for a few months before we actually bought one, when you could still rent game consoles from Blockbuster) and I fell in love with Syphon Filter as my first game. Played it SO much, but it was so hard to figure out sometimes, and I remember getting stuck for hours in certain places in it. That wasn't a downside to me though, since it was such a fun challenge.


But absolutely NOTHING beats Spyro the Dragon 2 - Rypto's Rage.
I seriously have clocked at least 1000 hours into replaying that game over the past decade. It's been my all time favorite storyline game, and I don't think I will ever retire from it until I die.

-------------------------

So, my question to you MMO-Champion, what games did you play on older systems, (PS2/Xbox is the cutoff) that defined your childhood?
I wanna make a list so I can go to my local Pawn Shop and see what I should pick up.

You sir, made my night soooo many great memories playing this game.

[Kalyyn]

First and foremost, this is the best game ever made:


Also on my list would be


and


This was also unspeakably good

[yeast]

I can say something negative about pretty much every game I've ever played. In fact, the more I love a game the more critical I am of it.
To that end, I can't really list a game here.

[Chrno]

w00t !! amazing

man 0 man i LOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVEEEEDDD croc

[harkonen]

nice post

the first game I can remember overplaying was renegade on the spectrum. It was amazing at the time, even if it took 20 minutes to load (forever for a kid) or if you knocked the spectrum only slightly it would crash :P still we endured these problems and played this game to death



Another one was on my friends tape loading amstrad, where you flew a plan in side scrolling manner, and had to bomb cities below. found this on google, but still no name, but you get the idea.



In terms of arcades, of course I remember the big sega machines with plane seats and rideable bikes, but it was shinobi that I chose to throw my precious 10p coins into.






The only other game that I played a lot in arcades was street fighter 2, and we used to play winner stays on, so if you were good you could play for hours on a single credit I still think this was one of the best games ever made, and I played it for years after on the super nes



My next memories are from my first console, the sega master system. I got it with alex kidd built in, which was a great game.



The other game I remember playing loads of on this console was wonderboy, which was also a brilliant game



I never owned a nes, but I played my friends a lot and besides the obvious mario, we used to play double dragon 2 religously.



The other game I remember playing a lot was bubble bobble, another very fun 2 player game.



Around this time a friend had an amiga and we played barbarian a lot. The aim was simply to chop the other player's head off and was very funny.



My next console was the sega megadrive, the games I remember playing endlessly were of course sonic, but also road rash:



toejam and earl:



kid chameleon



streets of rage



ok im bored now, but these were the early gaming memories I have of games I played way too much

others after would be mario kart, mario 3, f-zero X, ff7, goldeneye, tactical ops, civilisation 2, sim city, ragnarok online, WoW, DDO, and dragon age.

many more great games I am sure I have forgotten

[Egga]

one of my favorite games on Sega Genesis 16-bit along with Alex Kidd and Sonic the Hedgehog