I promised I’d shut up about gaming, didn’t I? Well, I fibbed. Or rather, I promised I’d shut up about Ultima 7. Well, I’ve been playing Ultima 4 all day, so you’re just going to have to put up with me.
Today’s topic: The Top 20 Best Games of All Time. Why that, you ask? Because I’ve been reading this and I felt like it. So here we are.
This will be slightly unconventional, as Sirian’s list is one of video games. Mine is one of all games, period. I’m funny like that. Also, this is no real order, as I lack the patience to categorize to that degree. So.
1. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Second Edition (TSR, 1989): I first ran across AD&D in the summer of my 6th grade year. The year would have been 1992 or so. Helped down the path by my brothers’ old First Edition Player’s Handbook and a role in the school production of Macbeth, I ran out and grabbed what I could of Second Edition. The rest, as they say, is history. I can say without the shadow of a doubt that this game changed my life. The rules are clunky, inferior by today’s standards – Third Edition got everything right, as far as I’m concerned. No matter. For the time, it offered a roleplaying experience second to none, and it opened up vast avenues of expression for me – world design, creative writing. I’ve now been playing for over a decade, over more worlds than I can remember. It’s been the favorite of my circle of friends all that time.
2. Battletech (FASA, 1985): I first entered the world of Battletech through I believe Mechwarrior 2. The computer game was entertaining yet subpar in areas – most who have played it think it was the pinnacle of greatness, I loved it for the background material on the Clans it included. Thus hooked, and this would have been 1995 or so, I devoured the ‘net looking for info on the game. I found it, rushed out and bought the Citytech Second Edition box, and fell in love. It’s a monster of a tactical sim – 4 on 4 battles can take hours – but it has an enormously rich storyline and gameplay that’s enormously entertaining despite the delays. Never as much of a favorite in my circle as AD&D, I’ve still played my fair share of games, and still love the game and the universe.
3. Sim City 2000 (Maxis, 1993): The fascination of this game should be familiar to most – I remember it still being installed on computers at my high school in 1999, and it was as popular then as it was when I first had it. Until I ultimately burnt out on it and the entire genre, I played this to death. Building an entire city and watching it grow like a Lego set come to life was the joy of my 13 year old existance. I can remember buying the strategy guide, memorizing the numbers, and planning out entire cities on graph paper. The joy of the game has faded to the point I have no desire to play Sim City 4, but if there were a list of Top 20 Strategy Guides, SC2k’s would head the list without a doubt. A better source of numerical and practical data about a game I have yet to find.
4. Empire Deluxe (New World, 1993): In the late 1980s, when most kids my age were still playing Super Mario Brothers, I had more or less abandoned my Nintendo in favor of games like the original Empire. I had strategy gaming drilled into me from an early age, you could say. The premise of Empire was that you controlled a number of cities, from which you produced a variety of military units, with which you conqured more cities and ultimately the world. Empire Deluxe took that a step further, with more unit types, better graphics, and a much improved interface and gameplay. A monstrously addictive strategy game, enough so that the original had a warning label on the box.
5. Ultima VII: The Black Gate/Ultima VII: Part II, Serpent Isle (Origin, 1992/1993): I’ve said much about these games here previously, but I’ll say it again. Both of these games were the first RPGs that I remember in any detail, and coming at the same time as my AD&D addiction, were two of the defining moments of my early teenage years. Years ahead of their time in world-building, graphics, and plot design, I never tired of them despite the fixed storylines and lack of real character-building. To revel in the scope of them was to be helplessly addicted. I really only stopped playing them when my Windows 95 Pentium could no longer handle them.
6. Civilization II (MicroProse, 1996): If Empire was the genesis of my love of strategy gaming, Civ 2 was the maturation of it. Gone was the wargame feel of Empire, replaced with the experience of guiding an entire civilization to domination of the world through military, diplomatic, and technological means. It was an utterly fascinating experience to lead your civilization all the way from birth to ultimate victory, helped by a stunning series of video clips – the wonder movies and the Alpha Centauri landing clip are some of the finest I’ve ever seen.
7. Morrowind (Bethesda, 2002): For years, and I’m talking about half a decade, I had been waiting for a worthy successor to the mantle of the Ultima 7s. Ultima 8 and Ultima 9 were dismal failures, though 8 managed to be an entertaining game in it’s own right once patched. Daggerfall, Morrowind’s predecessor, almost managed, and for 1996 was stunningly revolutionary, but it wasn’t quite it. Then came Morrowind. Never since Ultima 7 have I been so absolutely engrossed in a world. It almost felt, at times, as if I could taste the ash in an ash storm. Never has a world been so open, yet so unique at the same time. Character development was enormous, enough so that I have played through four odd times with radically different characters. The world is big enough that I have yet to explore it all. Bethesda said, once, that they were looking to create the ultimate single-player RPG. They succeeded.
8. F15 Strike Eagle II (MicroProse, 1991): These were the days when flight sims were flight sims. The focus was not so much on the mechanics of making the plane fly, as is the case with many flight sims since (including the third in the F15 series, barely played by me for it’s complexity), but on thinking. How do I avoid that radar station? Do I have the weapons do take care of those fighters? Can I hit that juicy target and still make it back? Do I have the fuel to make it back? Those questions kept me playing this one for a long, long time, until it finally collapsed from age and died.
9. Goldeneye (Rare, 1997): I do not normally play first person shooters, though recently I’ve begun wavering on that. Bond, though. Bond is a thinking-man’s FPS, with lots to do besides just gun people down. Couple than with a truly addictive multiplayer setting, and you have a game that kept my friends and I busy until the release of it’s successor game, Perfect Dark.
10. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (Ensemble, 1999): Those of you in Tonto will understand why I love this game. It is, to date, one of three online communities I’ve become involved with. Why? Because it is an RTS done right. I hated Warcraft. Starcraft went unplayed by me. Age of Empires was a good game, but wasn’t quite there yet. Age of Kings solved all the interface problems, balanced the game not quite perfectly but close enough, and featured stunningly brilliant multiplayer, made even better by the expansion. This is one of a rare few games that I have played so many times, to such length that I can no longer bear to look at them – I’ve sucked everything they have to give. Such it is with this game, so much so that it taints it’s successor, Age of Mythology.
11. Fantasy Empires (SSI, 1993): Shogun: Total War is often credited with being the first to couple a good turn-based strategy game with a compelling real-time strategy game under it. Not so. Before Shogun, there was Fantasy Empires, a D&D strategy game with many of the same elements: conquering provinces, combined arms armies, income management, and the like. Yet it was simple enough to be played in the course of a day or so, which is why my friends and I adopted it as a game of choice in the mid-90s, until we couldn’t run it any longer due to advancing computer tech.
12. Civilization III (Firaxis, 2001): Researching the date on that, I’m amazed that it’s been two years since this came out. It doesn’t seem like it. This is Civ 2 taken to it’s logical progression, with Age of Kings-style uniqueness tossed in for good measure. Despite a lackluster combat model, everything else is there, including features like culture borders you never knew you needed before, but can’t live without now. Most games, I’d have burnt out on by now. Civ 3 has another expansion coming out, and I’m buying it. It’s my third online community, as well.
13. Rush 2 (Midway, 1998): When racing games go slightly odd. Rush 2 is a Nintendo 64 racing game that, while it has a lot of adrenaline-based gameplay to it, doesn’t take itself too seriously – the physics can sometimes be way out there, and every level has a series of jumps and shortcuts that would never be there in real life, plus a stunt mode, but no matter. The adrenaline rush, coupled with gigantic customizability and level replayability, still has us playing the odd game of it.
14. Daggerfall (Bethesda, 1996): This is, perhaps, the bottom of my top 20 list. I include it for it’s scope. Not since Ultima 7 has a world been this huge, a plot or world this involved. Buggier than all hell when originally released, this was eventually overcome, and one could enjoy the same deep character customization that would later appear in Morrowind, along with a randomized world, which led to enormous replayability.
15. Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain (LucasArts, 1989): Another of the old-school flight sims, I picked this one up with a joystick I bought in the early ’90s. Unlike F15, TFH was mostly adrenaline. How many enemy planes CAN I shoot down before I run out of ammo, and can I manage to keep my pilot alive to get all the medals, do amazing missions? Ultimately, this game, too, faded when I started running out of computer to play it on.
16. Super Mario Kart (Nintendo, 1992): Before there was Rush 2, before there was Bond, before the monstrously addictive Mario Kart 64, there was Super Mario Kart. We played this one to death during high school. A racing game, but with a twist – you could lay traps, shoot your opponents with turtle shells, or just go drive around in battle mode. Eventually we played ourselves out of this, into Rush 2 and Bond, and came back for the Nintendo 64 version, which was just as good.
17. The Crystal Shard/Alsherok (1996/1997+): My first great online community was that of multi-user dungeons, MUDs to us players. The experience is akin to playing D&D, except online with dozens of other people. The forerunners of the modern massively multiplayer RPGs, MUDs are all text, with written descriptions replacing graphics. There was a time when I was on Shard that I would go to school, return home, fire up the MUD, and lose myself until I needed to get up 4 hours later. My parents actually got me my own phone line for a while because I was using up their own. Also through Shard and later as head builder on Alsherok, my world design and creative writing skills were further honed, and later my skills as a game designer and balancer.
18. Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance (Microsoft, 2000): A first-person shooter in a giant robot, Mechwarrior 4 is the successor to the giantly popular, giantly successful Mechwarrior 2. The third in the series went unloved, the worthiness of the fourth is hotly debated in the community. Some criticize it for not remaining true to it’s Battletech roots. I don’t care. For the most part, it’s the best balanced of the Mechwarriors, and the missions are stunningly realistic and challenging. And the multiplayer? The multiplayer shines. Despite other contenders, MW4 is the current LAN game of choice in my parts.
19. Baldur’s Gate/Baldur’s Gate 2 (Bioware, 1998/2001): A friend showed me the original BG after it came out. He got it back, eventually, when I got my own copy. BG did a number of things well – a highly engaging story better than any I had seen in years, hooked to one of the best renderings of the AD&D 2nd Edition rules on a computer with great graphics for the time. BG2 did everything just as well. Sure, the story was pretty screwy, but once you got into it, your life was over. This game and Age of Kings killed my sophomore year in college. Replayable by default of the rules set, I’ve played multiple characters through both, including partyless solo attempts.
20. Perfect Dark (Rare, 2000): Goldeneye’s successor game, Perfect Dark required me to spend more money on a memory card just to play it. No matter. What I ended up with a game light years beyond Bond. The missions were challenging – truly the thinking man’s FPS, enough so that I have yet to beat some of the missions on hardest difficulty. More guns, each with two different fire modes – a great addition, and multiplayer to beat all multiplayer. Feel like cooperating against the computer? Fine. Or one player can play through the mission while the other player takes the bots against him. Or you can just shoot it out, with or without AI friends and enemies. Far more levels to play on. Had we not burnt ourselves out in an orgy of Bond/Perfect Dark playing, this would still be played.
I’m done now, really.
On a different note, and with applogies to the Luddite computer game haters in the audience, this’ll be my last on this particular subject, but I feel as if my staying up all night to beat the last two thirds or so of Serpent Isle is somehow worthy of recognition. Insamuch as it ought to be recognized that nobody really makes games like this anymore. Even the BGs, even Morrowind, for all I love those games, have nothing on the plot of Serpent Isle. This, folks, is the pinnacle of computer gaming in almost every way that it matters. SI’s plot is engaging, though there are a few sort of confusing spots here and there. Graphically it is now behind the times, although for 1993 it was beyond spectacular. It has a degree of immersion in the world that is second only to Morrowind’s, and that’s only because Morrowind has a decade of advances in graphics tech to work from. But most of all, SI makes you think. And I don’t mean the puzzles, though the puzzles DO make you think, and that’s good. But the plot, man, the plot, that’s amazing. These games have a point. From the first moment you play any Ultima past 4, you must ask yourself questions about the world. Hard questions about virtuosity, morality. Serpent Isle is perhaps the best example I have ever seen of allegory in a game, though it’s impossible for me to explain that to you without your having played it.
But in the end, any game that gives me adrenaline rushes and makes me stay up all night to play it, then leaves me sitting and staring at the screen going “Damn!” despite my having beat it at least 10 times, knowing the plot in intimate detail despite 10 years, and the total absence of the last cutscene which was a damn good cutscene, well, that game must truly kick ass.
On another note, I’m going to try to get into Ultima IV, widely hailed as the best Ultima there ever was. We’ll see. I’ll try not to bore you too much, though if anyone should care to follow along at home, the game is now freeware, and I can tell you what you need to do to make it run. In addition, the Conquests xpack for Civ 3 will be my end of the term present, and besides that, there’s a game by the name of UFO: Aftermath that’s sounding pretty damn cool, from Sirian’s talk on the Realms Beyond boards. We shall see.
And yes, I’m getting my homework done.
This one’s for Laura, though it’s fairly doubtful she’ll ever know.
To explain for the rest of you, I got a call last night, to the effect of “Yeah, Laura’s leaving! The going away party is tonight! Come!” Okie, I’m there.
I won’t bore you with the conversation. It wasn’t much, as conversation, though it’s probably some of the best conversation I’ve had with them in quite some time. The point, such as it is, is that life is slowly going by. Five years ago, and the anniversary was about a month ago, I was a very shy, rather frightened college freshman wondering how one went about meeting people in this strange new world. Nothing to it, really. Roomie introduced me to the guy down the hall, Matt, who was like “Yeah. Some of us are going to go up to 4th and play some cards and games later. You can come if you like.”
So I did. It turned out to be the wisest decision I made that year, one of the wisest I’ve made to date, probably. See, I met most of my college friends that night. Matt, Tali, Laura. Jennifer was there, I think. Four or five others who moved on at the end of the year. I met Jesse and Carla later, but for the most part, I made my friends that night.
Fast forward five years. Matt graduated my second year, and dropped off the planet. Carla disappeared after freshman year. Jennifer I haven’t heard from in about a year. Jesse graduated last year, and I’ve been negligent about keeping in touch, as has he. And now Laura’s going to Arizona. It may well be that I’ll never see her again. Tali and I graduate at the end of the year. Where we end up from there, who knows? But the group is slowly fading. And that’s sad.
But it’s been a lot of fun.
Or it comes pretty damn close, anyway.
Lotta gaming lately. Lotta studying, too, but lotta gaming. I feel like I’m taking that whole work hard/play hard thing to heart now.
Other night, Thursday I want to say, Whir introduced me to Vampire: The Masquerade. That there, and pardon my French, is some fucked up shit. But it’s fun. Being as how I didn’t even know the rules or anything, I just made a character up something or another like me. We start in Corvallis. Walk out of my dorm room, get, uh, recruited by a vampire to be his, um, archivist. I get a nice gory death scene. This is good. There’s a nifty scene in which he’s like “Well, you can either join us, or you can die.” “Since you put it THAT way…”
Yeah. So I go back to loot my dorm room, run into some girl in the hallway, and, uh, lose control. Feeding time! Which I do, until I suddenly realize, er, bad plan. But I take her with me anyway. Because if you’re going to be amoral, go the whole nine yards, man. The whole nine yards including a nice gunfight with some hunters on the outskirts of Corvallis. About when we ended. Fun times. It’s…interesting, playing a game where you can visualize where you are with deep clarity.
Anyway. Played some MWDA campaign this morning. Ledgerwarrior, really. It’s a lot of bookkeeping running an interstellar empire, but we’re getting better at it. Without going into too much detail, it’s a lot of fun.
Played some D&D tonight with Rema and Mel and the gang. Despite my totally zoning during half the game, it was a lot of fun. Our mission to go investigate the evil demons for the Temple and Save the Day(tm) got reasonably far, getting sidetracked by a grey render which almost killed Mel’s cleric, not to mention Matt’s barbarian. It also got sidetracked by a particularly odd joke involving a 40 foot long giant centipede dead in the road, ravens, and a mythical giant sparrow, which we blathered about for quite a while until somebody (Mel, I think), said something or another that sent us all over the edge for a few minutes. I actually laughed until I cried. I haven’t laughed that hard in years, as they say, and it’s true.
Whatever it was, it was pretty damn funny.
Also, I watched the Matrix Reloaded Friday with Tali and Laurent. It’s better the second time around. It seemed shorter. The fight scenes seemed better, though the freeway scene wasn’t THAT exciting. I have an idea what I think is going on, but Revolutions comes out on the 5th, so I will say nothing, and look brilliant later.
Also played some Serpent Isle. The Fawn plotline, we note, is very annoying, in that it’s on a timer, which in this particular iteration of the game runs REALLY FREAKING SLOW, which meant hours of aimless wandering. Bad times. But now I’m past that, and I’m into the Serpent part of the game, which reminds me why I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen in 1993, and is STILL a damn cool game. The whole atmosphere of the thing just blows me away.
While we’re on that subject, it’s interesting how I can, 10 years later, see both U7 and SI as allegories, or metaphors maybe. They are not so much anti-religion games as they are anti-organized religion. The Fellowship is essentially a weakly disguised Catholic/Christian which leads it’s followers to evil by unswerving obedience. SI continues that trend by introducing the Ophidians, who destroy themselves by swerving too far from balance, crushing their emotions and tolerance by becoming disciplined, unfeeling machines. I of course understood none of this when I was 12. But it’s kind of cool, now.
Also, watching kittens do their thing rocks.
Ok, Reg. Here’s yer update. :)
I played my cards right, and it didn’t quite work anyway, but more on that later.
First, there was MWDA. And we played MWDA, and we lost horribly bad, but that’s ok, because our army wasn’t designed to win in the first place. Then we traded for almost all the non-unique Liao pieces we didn’t have, and life was good.
Then came Serpent Isle. I cannot rave enough about how good this game is. Even if it is from 1992. By far the best Ultima, I’d say. But I just ranted about that, so I won’t. Not finished with it yet, but I’m doing well. I’m also pleasantly surprised to know that despite what I remembered from Back In The Day, the plot isn’t linear – you don’t need to do Monitor->Fawn->Moonshade, which is why I’m doing Monitor->Moonshade->Fawn. Buahahahahaha.
Anyway. I went to test out my 1994-vintage Ultima 8 floppies, and they still worked perfectly. Like, whoa.
Also, I have hooked my mother on Tetris. Then, at her urging, I have taken up the top 4 or 5 high score slots with some of my best times ever just to urge her to beat them. Woot.
And then there was studying. “But Erik,” you say, “studying’s boring! Don’t tell us about studying!” But wait, I say. But wait.
But first, we flash back to, oh, the second week of poli sci class or so. Maybe a bit later. Anyway, it’s become apparent that there’s going to be a little group of the same people sitting near each other. At any rate, the redhead slightly in front and to the side of me introduces herself and strikes up a conversation.
This is good. Not in the least because she’s friendly and interesting to talk to.
Continue sporadic conversation until this week. Tuesday, in fact. Jean, the girl in question, says something about yeah, sure do need to study for that midterm Thursday. Well, not that I especially do, but it wouldn’t hurt. But that’s not the point. It’s about Seizing the Day, and all that. So after class I meander up and note that, yes, studying would be good, and would she like to? Yes, she would. So Wednesday we go to the library and run down the review sheet, then go have lunch and talk for a while. Good times.
Alas, she has a boyfriend. Story of my life, seems. But it’s not like more friends ever hurt a guy.
As for studying? Only 3 books to read this weekend. ;)
Every time I think I’ve seen it all, life blindsides me with another one.
I mean, the head of Richard Nixon on the body of a dog to promote a download accelerator on ICQ?
Because I so happen to be a main participant in the conversation, do feel free to check out Whir’s blog (today’s entry, for you latecomers).
Because I can’t bring myself to replace the irreplacable Marechal quote at the top there yet, but because this needs saying:
Whir: “How come I have to be a Unicorn? Brandon got Vampire, why can’t I? :(”
Ok, so I lied in the last one about real life stuff. ’sides. The rest of you probably had no idea what I was talking about in there.
So we’re in Early Republic class, uh, Tuesday, and we’re having a discussion about the assigned reading – Affairs of Honor about the culture of honor in early American politics. Anyway. People are kinda bringing up some points, having a talk on it.
Prof turns to me, and she’s like “Well, what did you think?”
Dangerous, that was.
“Well, honestly, while I thought the book had a lot of good points, and said a lot of good things, most of which have been covered already, I thought the book could have been half as long and covered all of the relevant material it set out to cover. Further, the chronological organization sucked. Badly.”
That didn’t look like it went over well.
So she turns to the girl near me, and asks the same question.
“Well, actually, I agree with what he said.”
*general murmers of agreement from the class*
Little worth repeating in real life, though if I play my cards right, that might change. But everybody’s gone for the weekend, looks like. Oh well.
I beat Ultima 7, though. In remarkably little time, after a very lengthy haitus from it. It’s rather surprising how much of it I remembered with perfect clarity, even with ten years’ distance between now and the last time I had played. I remembered the invisible caltrops in the hidden pirate cave near Jelholm. I remembered where about half the magic armor was. Did the entire expansion in about 4 hours because I remembered how to do the whole thing. I had also totally forgotten how easy it is to munch yourself out in the game – even without magic weapons, once I got past the Forge of Virtue early on, I was unstoppable. Part of that has to do with my game knowledge, but still.
I was pondering a bit while playing, and the state of gaming has changed quite a lot in 10 years, too. The 256 color graphics at sub-640×480 resolutions that U7 helped pioneer faded out about 5 years later, to be replaced by things enormously better. But it still looks damn nice, considering. Gameplay-wise, U7 actually holds up very well. In that too, it is a pioneer – in terms of a non-linear plotline and large world, and a degree of interaction with the world that we take for granted in most games these days. Frex, U7 has more subplots, and a more complex storyline than any game that has come since except the Baldur’s Gates and Morrowind. The amount of world to explore is comparable to both later games, and beats out a lot of others. There’s reasons why it remains a much-played game even today, and why a lot of people sorely lament Origin’s decline and fall.
The music, incidentally, is some of my favorite of all time, even as horrific as the quality of those oldschool 1992 midis is.
On another note, I was pondering how many memories I have wrapped up in this game. I remember when I was 12, I believe it was Father’s Day or Dad’s birthday, and Mom came in with this entirely black box. I dunno about Dad, but I was entirely blown away by the thing. Only reason I couldn’t steal it away from him is because we usually played games together, then. I tried, though.
There are others, like having a snow day at school and staying indoors to rescue the Time Lord, or hauling a cannon around on my flying carpet to blow up pirates. The list goes on.
Flash forward a time, to the 1993 release of Ultima 7, Part 2: Serpent Isle. I don’t believe I have anticipated a game as much since as I did SI. I had been making a list in my head while playing U7 of what would be cool features to have in a second game. And I’ll be damned if they weren’t all there. Actual paper doll models, YEARS before they became standard, and they looked SWEET for that period in time. No more rooting through bags for keys or food. Hell, the music’s even better. I’m there. More wear locations. What more do you want?
Then I started playing, as I just now did, and now as then I was utterly blown away. It’s even more REAL than U7, the plot and world even more exciting. I’m remembering once again why it’s my favorite game of all time.
And on yet another note, I present some thoughts I presented to Suzanne tonight. The topic? Ultima 9.
Me: Hahahahahahahahahaha. Quoth Richard Garriot: “You can run Ultima IX on a Pentium 200.”
Hahahahahahahahahaha.
*gasp*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
*gasping for air*
—————–
Her: that’s funny, even though i have n on idea what is so funny..
—————–
Me: Yeah. I figured you wouldn’t get that. But there’s some bitter humor in there for me.
U9 came out back in 1999. I had a practically brand new at the time Pentium 500, with all the sparkling new accessories.
I couldn’t run the game. It was slow, it crashed every, literally, 3 seconds. It is, to date, the only game I’ve ever heard of where the company had to send out brand new install CDs.
Horrible experience. Horrible. And everybody thought Ultima 8 sucked like that…
So, yeah. Reading a 1998 interview where the head guy’s saying “Everyone and their dog can run our game!” is just hilarious.
This is, we note, the same company that has a reputation for needing top of the line computers to run their games. I mean, you look at an Origin game, and 3 years later everyone else is doing what they did. They’re that far ahead of the curve. Or were, once.
Worst gaming experience I ever had. The remastered CDs helped, though. Only crashed once per 10-20 minutes. That’s survivable.
Yes, I have a pretty unique take on what constitutes “survivable” in terms of game crashes. But then, I’ve played for years on a MUD that if it crashed once in an hour, that was doing good.