fallout 1, and fallout 2 are amazing games. yes it helps to use the new community engines for modern computers, but its hard to find that level of narrative engagement in any modern games. (fallout new vegas is also excellent)
The Witcher 1 is incredibly painful to play, though. I played through it, but it felt incredibly unbalanced at times and just wasn't as well designed as the sequels.
Yeah I was going to post the same. The games themselves were awesome stories, and half the fun was replaying the game and trying to get overpowered as quick as possible, or do a dumb character run or a charismatic pacifist run or whatever.
But yeah, the engine is so janky that I can understand modern gamers being put off.
To be fair the original might as well be a diffrent game. More simialr to crisis than today far cry whereas far cry 2 is basicaly the modern far cry with one incredibly stupid decision ruining the game thats probably fixed by some mods.
I remembered I gave it a quick try on PS3 but as my brain was very rotten with COD games at the time it never grabbed too much of my attention... But I still have it in my backlog.
The PC port of FC2 is a disaster though. I remember sitting through that long intro cutscene so many times, it just kept crashing before the first save point…
People complain about PC ports now (and rightfully so) but man there was a constant stream of garbage ports in the late ‘00s that were never fixed.
I have both the disc and the Steam version and I've never had a problem getting either to run. Especially that first cut scene never once crashed on me, and I must have started about a dozen playthroughs over the past 15 years, on vastly different hardware configurations.
More than anything it's held back by it's ultra short development time. The engine isn't great, but they made it work for them fine, ignoring the crashes which could have been solved with more time, and are mostly solved with mods. The combat can only be so good with it, but that's not why NV is good anyway.
That's not fair. Interplay made a 3D (though still top down) "Fallout" with Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel before they sold it to Bethesda. It's also far worse than anything Bethesda has done or will do with the series. It's great how everyone just chooses to ignore that it exists.
Warcraft 2 was actually a really great game. If Warcraft 3 and StarCraft never came out and utterly eclipsed it, it would have been an all timer. Warcraft 1 was also good, but inferior to 2 in basically every way and never got time to shine.
Witcher 1 was incredibly tough to play through, but Witcher 2 was great.
WC1 was iconic at the time and we thought nothing could top it. Then WC2 absolutely blew our minds, and SC destroyed them as (I think) the first popular RTS with highly asymmetric but balanced factions.
Blizzard was absolutely on the top of their game then.
Of course nobody (including myself) realized that both games were just Warhammer / 40k in disguise, because those games were only for true nerds at the time. Only in the last few years as 40k has become mainstream did it become obvious where Blizzard got the lore and aesthetic to create such iconic games.
I heard (so feel free to go down the rabbit hole and try to varify it, cause I am struggling to find a definitive source) that Blizzard was actually trying to make a 40k game but the deal fell through so they went for legally distinct lore. And one of the reasons all the cerabrates were killed between brood war and wings of liberty was because games workshop didn't feel they were legally distinct enough and blizzard didn't want to get in a protracted legal battle over them.
I've heard that it was Warcraft that was supposed to be a Warhammer licensed game but I don't believe it. I don't know what the armies looked like at the time when Warcraft 1 was being designed, but the Humans certainly don't look like anything in 5th Ed - TOW.
StarCraft is clearly inspired by WH40k, but it came out after they should have resolved any licensing issues with Warcraft.
I think it's worth noting that if you're playing the Pixel Remaster version, it's significantly less jank than the original from the NES. They also made the trap rooms a lot less brutal. That said the game is overheated for sure. It had ideas that didn't pan out but it also was pretty ambitious for a NES game.
I loved it too! Until I learned you can attack your own party to essentially powerlevel. Couldn't stop myself from abusing it instead of doing some proper leveling.
I know I'm probably in the minority here, but I liked the first 2 Grand Theft Auto games on PC better than the more well known ones... They were top down view and easier to just pick up and play. The graphics were more like a 16bit era game. They were simpler games that just felt more fun to me than the giant massive games that came out later. I tried a few of the later ones but it just made me miss the originals lol
The main theme song is awesome, it’s called Grand Theft Auto by Da Shootaz on streaming services. I had a PS1 disc version of the game from what I recall too which meant the song could be played by putting the game disc in a regular audio cd player.
I absolutely love Fallout 1 & 2. They are personal favorites. Far Cry 1 was also incredible, but the only ones I've touched after were Primal and Blood Dragon. I really need to try out the early GTAs though.
Well "far cry fans" are wrong. Far cry 2 is probably the last mildly risky game Ubisoft ever produced and was way ahead of its time in a lot of aspects.
Yeach as far as climate goes it was great. The only unfortunate choice were the endlesly respawning guardpost (?) not sure about the name. But it was a massively ubfortunate point. It really made the game go from very good to throwing your controler in rage very fast.
Respectfully disagree. It's the captured roadblocks that turn the late game of other far cry games boring. FC2 was constantly dangerous. Arriving at a mission start point was an adventure. You had the option to Leroy Jenkins into the roadblocks, beat a wide path around them, take the bus, or 30 other things in between.
That's why the later games make unlocked bases into fast travel points, because once defeated, there is no point in revisiting anything.
I may be in the minority, but I went and played the first 2 Witcher games (and then the 3rd again) with the intention of seeing how CDPR grew as developers before I played Cyberpunk and I was blown away with how they have ALWAYS been good at making a game atmospheric and immersive. Yeah, the first game the whole combat experience is janky AF (but fun in its own way) and a few of the key character models (Zoltan shudder yeesh) look horrifying, but the game, story, atmosphere, and storytelling that made the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 great were all present and noticeable in the Witchers 1 and 2
I feel like that sentiment only applies visually. The world and story of 1, as well as the gameplay if you accepted it was more of an RPG than an action game, felt much better than 2 did, imo, it just looked like absolute shit.
I just struggled hard with the gameplay. Some games throw up road blocks, but TW1 threw up entire mountain ranges for me. Maybe I just didn't quite get something in the mechanics, but it felt like the game would routinely go from playable, to "die incessantly until you grind and overlevel". A lot of the game's difficulty felt like it was just level-gating progression blocks. Maybe I was just trying to go too fast? I admit that I may have just brute-forced my way through things that probably had a more nuanced or subtle solution.
This is also not to say that I dislike TW1 at all. I quite enjoyed it. It just frustrated me more than 2 and 3 combined.
i played 1 and 2 before 3 launched. Allowed me to appreciate the choices i made in 2, and while the plot of 1 for the most part is virtually disconnected from the rest of the series outside of Foltest, gives you appreciation for the heart of stone dlc in 3 when you revisit Shani (especially since i went the Shani route over the Triss one).
because of how disconnected 1 is as a story, it almost could be a side story as its very self contained outside of Foltest' role inthe universe.
GTA2 and 3 might as well have been different series for how different they were. Both were great but I've always wanted to see a top down successor to GTA2. The game was much goofier and the top down view let you kite a ridiculously large police force through the wildest chases imaginable.
GTA2 was just plain fun.
Kind of like how Metroid forked into its 2D and 3D incarnations, each with a separate story and timeline even (The Metroid Prime series splits off after Super Metroid, and Fusion / Dread diverge significantly)
With Prime 4 lost in the pipe somewhere, Dread was an honest surprise to see. Even more surprising was to see it was a 2D Fusion sequel over a decade later! And it felt like a real return to form for Metroid and was a blast to play.
This is how I feel a GTA2 sequel could be received, but they would need some way to identify it from the 3D titles that most people identify as GTA now.
Maybe even an HD remaster with some new content would be well received. I would love to play GTA2 again in HD.
Absolutely. Daggerfall is an excellent game! It has some bugs, sure, and the procedural dungeons are sometimes broken, but it is such a fun game that really pushed what was possible in its time.
Arena is actually way more interesting than people give it credit for.
One of the most fascinating parts, and IMO one of the greatest lost features to the entire series, is that it had Terraforming.
Since the world was kinda on a grid/cell system, you could cast spells to make pits or walls, which was kinda simple for the time, but just think about it- as a strong enough spellcaster, its a viable strategy to create a pit all the way to the magma layer to avoid a martial opponent, and just sling spells at them.
Imagine if that popped in TES VI! Friggin Earthbend and yeet that Dark Brotherhood assassin to one of the moons
Preach on, Arena was amazing at the time. The "wall" spells to make and destroy walls were super powerful and pretty unique in RPGs. I also liked the "simple" ADND2 style spells (e.g. RNG value * level fireball). Daggerfall was better in most every way other than bugs, but Arena was great. It's hard to go back and play it though, it would need to be totally remade which might kill a lot of its charm.
Persona 2 duology is better written than any other Persona game, and I think one of three games I've cried finishing. That's not a "tough guy" flex, that's just a comment on how shallow most video game writing is.
Also you can be gay and fight Hitler. Tatsuya sweep.
Well it's the most hoped for remake in Japan after Persona 3...so here's hoping a P2 rebuild is on top of Atlus' list now.
I love the game too, but I even hesitate to recommend it to diehards of the genre because the gameplay is so dated. I usually say to watch a YT plot only video if anyone is ever interested.
I guess this is one of those times where being old and having played the first two installments of the series mentioned, because that was what was out at the time, makes you look cool. Right guys?
I think they meant the original versions of 1&2, because they are fixed-perspective, which for most people is just inferior. Whether you have nostalgia for those stories or not, almost everyone playing them are playing the Kiwami versions (which is also one of the main arguments many people give for why Yakuza 3 doesn't need the Kiwami treatment).
Such bizzare moment when someone acknowledged megaten series and its fanbase on this kind of forum.
Fallout 1(!) and 2 is still enjoyable due to its turn based and variety of char build. Although may be frustating if you do not understand how the game played.
Meanwhile on Saints Row series, the best are on 1 & 2 (back when they have more grounded story though they have whacky side content).
With Final Fantasy Restored. Its definitely worth revisiting old favorites with As Intended/QoL updates.
But I can see why they are hesitant to replay the original as is, because it can be a bit rough.
Yet so charming. And its hard to keep one without losing the other in the rereleases
I grew up with a shareware version of Warcraft 1. I bought Warcraft 2 from a garage sale, turned out to be a burned cd with a home printed label but it worked and I played the crap out of it. Warcraft 3 though...is on another level entirely. Hands down the best game of my life. I played Warcraft 3 with some consistency for like 14 years straight. What blizzard did to it with "reforged" is a fucking disgrace and completely unforgivable.
Battlefield 2 was the first online game I really lost myself in. Good times. I still remember how aghast my friend was when I flew the attack heli through that one pipe in the dam map.
Skate fan here, why are we included? Skate 3 may be the one most of the community plays, but I think most skate fans agree one and especially two are good games in their own right. In my opinion skate 2 is just a more stylish version of skate 3 really.
By TSE do they mean TES. That'd still be weird considering I think more people would have had either Skyrim or Oblivion be their first entry, and not Morrowind
Yeah but even dedicated elder scrolls fans aren't going to go back and play through arena and daggerfall. Morrowind definitely feels old but from my perspective still feels very playable and understandable from a modern context. Daggerfall and arena are a different beast entirely and are a little more intimidating for the average gamer.
Thats a fair point! I've loved every entry of TES since Morrowind, yet I've never felt the urge to play Daggerfall or the first, and I dont think I ever will
Granted I haven't played them since they first came out, but far cry was great and the second one was ground breaking. The second one also started the trend of memorable, nuanced villains with the Jackal.
It's kinda why I hated farcry 5. Joseph seed wasn't nuanced, he was a religious zealot with no redeeming qualities, and since I despise religion I found him insufferable and not interesting. Also the bad guy in 6 was pretty straight forward and boring
A lot of people meme about the malaria in Far Cry 2 as being annoying but personally I hated the instantly respawning checkpoints wayyy more. Getting the malaria pills side quest adds to the flavour and danger of the land, and like 1 button prompt once in awhile, while not ideal, isn't the worst and can add into the tension when if flairs up at the wrong time.
But clearing a checkpoint, realising you made a wrong turn, turn back and needing to fight at the same checkpoint again? Gah!
Yeah, same for me. Those constantly respawning checkpoints killed immersion for me and took away all sense of progress. What's the point of clearing them if you already know it will repopulate within moments anyway.
Are you using the US or the Japanese numbering? US 2 was pretty good. Japanese 2 was still super early and closer to 1, so not very complex. I found that one to be fairly dull.
You are not, it's just fanboys who have perverse need for allegiance for no other reason than to geek out over something that are not touching anything before their time. To me Fallout is the first two games, and perhaps New Vegas even though engine is dogshit.
I have played the first and second witcher games! I am sure that the first one has a lot of good stuff but all I really took away was that it was weird relative to modern games and it took a lot of willpower to finish. The second game is bad fucking ass! Buuuut the difficulty scaling and overall pacing is a bit odd. For example you can play on a relatively high difficulty and the base gameplay is very reasonable and fun but the bosses are just absolutely batshit and you'll get stuck in a loop where youre dying about 2.5 seconds after reloading endlessly
edit: and if you haven't played 3 youre missing out! It is super fun and playing on death march is actually really rewarding and fun
The Witcher 1 is a pretty standard CRPG styled like the original Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, etc, and all essentially running a modified Dungeons and Dragons ruleset behind the scenes.
It probably did feel a little dated because it simply was dated, even for 2007 and with some of the changes they made to keep things interesting.
First one has the best Alchemy system of the three, which only got progressively worse with each entry. I also felt more satisfaction researching monsters and their strengths/weaknesses prior to encounters in 1. The other games for whatever reason didn't quite scratch that same itch, but were obviously better in most other ways. All in all, I think I liked 1 and 3 the most.
Dunno about Yakuza but sounds fine for all but warcraft. World of ruined the franchise for me. I just wanted more of the same. Also I thought persona was part of megami tensei.
Ugh misread your comment and went on a fallout 2 rant. Woops. Totally agree with you! The early fallout games were excellent, and i think the only good one since the IP got picked up is new Vegas
Can I hear your fallout 2 rant anyway? I only played the modern ones, and nearly totally ignored the strategy involved in VATS in favor of just shooting enemies in the head myself.
I maintain that FF8 is mostly only loved when people have nostalgia for it, or they love the card game, or they love breaking the battle system (generally by using the card game).
I was playing through the series, and 8 was my biggest disappointment.
jokes on them, i actually played gta and witcher early titles at least on this list. if baldurs gate is included, i at least played the dark alliance spinoff
Everything except The Witcher, Shin Megami and Yaluza I am a fan of because of the first 2 games.
The Witcher 3 I skipped out on because the first 2 were jank as fuck and I couldn't actually finish either of them despite thinking the ideas and story were rad. It wasn't until way later I gave it a shot and it was definitely a better game than the first 2, but the combat got super stale after 20 hours and that's not even like 1/5th of the story.
I don't know why I never got into Persona or his other games. Just never tickled me. 🤷🏻♂️
Yakuza I only recently found to be awesome with Lost Judgement.
My friends usually wanted to hang out at my house because I was the only one with a PC and the only way they could ever check out shit like Fallout and Diablo.
Back in the day I'd started with SMT3 and somehow never felt like going back further (1st person dungeon crawler never sounded appealing - so I've only ever made an exception for Strange Journey Redux).
But I feel like I've experienced it all first hand including the more niche entries + history thanks to Marsh. So just in case you feel curious:
Civ has a lot of old fans since civ 1 or 2 that just buy and play any new civ game that comes out. I had:
Civ 1
Civ 2 + Addons
Call to Power (which was no official civ)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Civ 4 + Addons
Freeciv
Civ 5 + Addons
Civ: Beyond Earth
Civ 6 + Addons
Unciv
So does Armored Core, Yakuza, Final Fantasy, Fallout and a few other of the series posted here but I'm here to make jokes not accurate observations about various niche gaming communities
Stranger of Paradise is good? It is mocked by the FF community and even within it's own game. That is a FF staple though.
I would say the job leveling tree was what was intended in Tactics or FFXIV, but the rest is really not that great. The battle system is no different than FF7 Remake. The story is not really engaging. It's was fun for a few weeks. If it's at a discount. Sure.
Great story and even better ideas about consequences, but even then it was a rough gameplay experience.
It makes more sense when you realise it was originally going to be a PC port of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but it leads to this awkward mix of gameplay styles that are hard to grasp at first. There's really not much to the combat other than clicking when the icon glows and moving.
The hardest fight in the game is a dog very early on, which you can cheese by stunning it with Aard (RNG based iirc) and landing a one hit finisher, but the fact that there's an unskippable lengthy cutscene right before it is absolutely obnoxious. And fighting something two levels above you is a death sentence, leading to a bit of exploring to get enough XP to be able to do everything.