Games we remember being the best
 

We all have them, the classics. So what made them classics and why are they remembered? would you want to see them remade with better graphics and systems? if so talk here.

My one game I would love to see remade bigger better and badder would be the Tie Fighter and X Wing games. The storylines in those were fantastic, and the space combat was intense. And in Tie Fighter when you get Darth Vader as your wingman it was just cool.

I loved TIE Fighter as well. Couldn't ever get into X Wing though, considering the difficulty was so much higher. (or seemed so at that age. :P )

I actually played a lot of Dark Reign, so i'm going to call that my classic. Sadly it never really caught on like Total Annihilation and StarCraft did. The engine was great but as a lot of people feel the game was a little lacking. Didn't stop me though. ^^

I'd mostly like to see an upped resolution version of this. I look over and see my roomie playing Total Annihilation at a super high resolution and it looks REAL good, despite being god knows how many years old. With Dark Reign i'm stuck with 640 x 480 which wouldn't be bad, except for that ungodly large building bar. ;_;

I totally hear you with Tie Fighter. I'd love to play it all over again, as it doesn't work for me anymore, being a DOS game and all : / Not to mention that my joystick is really squeaky too...I should invest in a new one some day...

Another game I'd love to see remade is Wolf from Sanctuary Woods. Unfortunately, they've since changed their company name and decided to make only educational crap, so I don't see any possiblity of it happening anytime soon. Still, Wolf was an awesome, unique game and an update would be awesome.

So many classics, so little time.

* Return to Zork should be remade with a sans-MIDI soundtrack, and with DVD-quality video. (Windows NT support would be nice, too.)

* Yes, TIE Fighter should be redone, but not as much as the ...

* Wing Commander games. Those games were addictive as hell for some reason.

* The original Unreal Tournament would be awesome to see in a new engine. I liked the gameplay of the original Unreal much more than that of its successors for some odd reason. It just seemed to flow better.

Finally, someone had to mention the not-quite-as-old ...

* Final Fantasy VII should be remade. (Maybe I should say it should be finished first, then remade.) You've all seen the PS3 FFVII “tech demo” that's been floating around the internet from E3.

(Return to Zork remake ... please? At least Zork Grand Inquisitor 2 that now seems less likely than Duke Nukem Forever? No? Damn ...)

A good Duke Nukem game would be awesome. I know there were others made after 3D, but none from what I saw had the same fun about it as 3D did. Shadow Warrior came fairly close, but that was just another game of theirs with the same general idea.


....I miss Descent 1 and 2. :(

Sierra's quest catalog was sheer gaming bliss: King's Quest, Police Quest, Quest for Glory, Leisure Suit Larry and the rest. These were the best of the best in 80's and 90's adventure gaming, and unlike the equally commendable efforts from Lucasarts, they encompassed a broader range of genres. There are some titles I'd consider duds, like the first two King's Quests, Larry 5 and Laura Bow 2, but most of the games are still worth playing today.

Gabriel Knight in particular is not to be missed. The writing in those games is better than a lot of novels I've read.

I'd rather not see remakes, since part of their charm is in the presentation and following how the gameplay evolved (or devolved, depending on how you feel about text parsers) as the series progressed. Fixing the buggier games like Quest for Glory 4 would be a bigger priority for me.

A few I wouldent mind seeing being made again were:
1. Legend of Dragoon
2. Wolfenstein
3. ANY Commander Keen game
4. and Jagged Allience: Deadly Games (A rather uncommen game)

Assuming there is NO change to story line, FFVII is the only one that comes to mind.

Some games just seem better in their 8-bit glory, though. Contra should be left as-is.

My entire PC video game life started with Warcraft 2, continued with many years of non-stop Starcraft, and a nice healthy Diablo 2 addiction later on. Some games I played a little through years were CS and some Quake ones in the late 90's.

The Ultimate DOOM Beating the fourth episode was painfully hard on Ultra Violence, but it was the most rewarding thing I have ever done on an fps (Episode 4 easily has the best level design of the DOOM games).
StarCraft I waited until 2004 to finally beat the three original campaigns, but it was very fun and surprisingly easy. Also I learned the Zerg is my favorite race.

Hell, for me, Deus Ex was pretty awesome for me. Sure, a second one has been remade but hell, the original was way more better.

It is kind of sad that the quest/adventure game as kind of fallen by the wayside. They didn't just used to be good, it was basically the best genre of games. If we could have new versions of games like Monkey Island that were as good as the originals, I'd become a PC gamer again, I think. Everyone is working on MMOs, which is pretty frustrating for people like me who like games with a good story and good writing.

Sierra was a great company for adventure games. I had pretty much everything they put out in the late 90s. I agree that the adventure game market is pretty stagnant nowadays. Not withstanding Myst and some others that keep popping up.

I haven't played many Adventure games, but I must say Soul Reaver (at least the first time around) was a great adventure game (though it was action heavy). So far I haven't really gotten into the Ultimas or the Fallout series.

The original Command and Conquer, there is just something appealing about watching the enemy run over my machine gunners with a battle bike only to crush the bike with my Med. tank.

Legend of Zelda, OoT; Great 3d adaptation of the Zelda series, got the flavor and settings of the world just right (for its time and its limited graphics cababilities)

Finally Starcraft, everyone already knows starcraft is great so I'm not going to waste keystrokes typing out why.

The original 8-bit graphics Civilization game.
That rocked my youung world.
Also, Might & Magic: Clouds of Xeen, and Darkside of Xeen.
My brother and I used to love going to my cousins' house just so we could play that game. We finally managed to find some copies of them in "The Ultimate RPG Archives" which had all sorts of old-school rpg games... but nothing compared to C of X and D of X.
Unfortunately, I could not find any way of playing those games on any of the newer computers. I guess programs that were programmed for a pentium 1 chip are not usable anymore.

The most fun I've had on my PC is a number of Lucasart's adventure games. The highest being Grim Fandango, followed by the Monkey Island games. Now, the remake discussion..

The term remake in the videogame world I see as a bit superficial. When someone mentions remake they usually mean it to be a port, from an old system to a new one, with better graphics, a few extras, anything of that nature. Take The Twin Snakes, Resident Evil as examples. I say, largely, what's the point? This category, especially remakes of recent games, don't really serve any purpose other for the people who missed out last time. At odds with the remake in the film form, where a story is told in a different way, using different techniques, maybe even a different genre. Take Shakespeare's original Othello and the transformed version taking place in modern day London, starring a black Othello and bringing themes of racism into the mix. Even the modern version of Romeo and Juliet. People here who say they'd only want FF7 remade with no underlying changes seem to be stuck in a rut.

Probably standing as the best recent remake I can think of at the moment is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Ignoring the sequels, it took the best bits of the original, the story's bare bones (maybe not even that) and adapted it into a modern videogame. And for anyone who saw 'I, Mario' over at OCR, they know what I'm talking about in terms of an intriguing remake concept.

Not trying to attack anyone. After all, this is a discussion.

X-Com: UFO Defense is a classic game that I will always be fond of. It's my favourite PC game of all time.

If they remade it, all they need to do is to give it a massive graphical overhaul and improve some of the nuances. The gameplay mechanics was already close to being perfect -- it was way ahead of its time.

Those LucasArts point-and-click adventures were hella awesome. I loved the Monkey Island series. Maniac Mansion, Loom, Indiana Jones, Zak, etc. Those highlighted my PC gaming back in the day.

Doom always held a special place in my heart. That is until the Rock came along...

I put another vote in for Starcraft, simply because I can still, ten (?) years after its initial release, pop in the cd for a quick KotH or something and there will still be tons of people botting and playing trivia and hardcores keeping their 100% win streak after so many years.

That cannot be said for the massive majority of other games.

My all time favorite PC games are easily Heroes of Might and Magic 3, and StarCraft.

Civilisation, SimCity those kept me playing for hours on end behind my now ancient 486. Those were the good times! :D

I remember when the original Worms came out and it was on a few computers at the school where my dad worked at the time. And at that time it was wonderful. Stuff go boom! It was so much fun. Now, there's Worms Armaggedon, which is even more fun, if only due to the Holy Hand Grenade.

Playing back and forth between HoMM II and HoMM III, I have ome to the conclusion that HoMM II is better. While it lacks the number of features and beasts you can recruit, it has a better animation style (not necesarily higher quality though), better music and a better atmosphere. It was before 3DO started to meddle with the magic of best the turn based strategy RPG that I've ever played.

It's a tough call, and they both have their merits. Heroes 2 has noticeably better atmosphere, while Heroes 3 has noticeably improved gameplay. I disliked HoMM 3 at first, but grew to like it more because of all its gameplay enhancements.

On the other hand, I agree that Heroes 2 remains the pinnacle of the series as it introduced many of the key concepts, while Heroes 3 only improved on it.

The main reason that's so is beacause New World Computing was still not controlled by the now dead 3DO. Just adding features doesn't make a better sequel, how those features are applied is what does the job (Diablo II being an example of good improvements). HoMM III lacks a some of the heart NWC put into the 2nd game.

Heroes 3 definitely takes a more serious tone, and it's clear from playing the beta that Nival is trying to bring back the tone of HoMM 2 into the latest game.

That's great news considering I heard every Might and Magic and HoMM game after HoMM 3 sucked.

I can't get any of them to work on my computer but I have played them on freinds computers and though they were pretty good. (Maybe my computer is just really shitty)

Warcraft II was pretty awesome since it was the first stratedgy game i ever played... Then Red Alert C&C took the place of the best stratedgy game for its time.

1) Shining Force Series. I wanna see them on a fairly-modern system. Last was on Saturn (NEO is *not* Shining Force >__<). Plus 3D would be spiffy.
2) Deus Ex. Really. I wanna see it with souped up graphics and gameplay.
3) System Shock 2. See above reasoning =p
4) Xenogears. Would never happen, but it'd be nice to see it remade graphically and the final disc tweaked storyline-wise.
5) More that I cannot think of.

Games I remember the best? Armored Core 1-3 + Silent Line. I rented Nexus and was horribly, horribly let down. Going to rent Nine Breaker but I hear more praise for Nexus... -__- Revolution CD was a nice treat though. Old-school.

Thief I-III were fantastic. I played III first, struggled through I, and tromped into II. II made me mad because the movies stopped working halfway through. I thought I was in a storyline drought. Once I found out about the problem, I was too far into the game. Found a script later on of the story but it left me empty, still... ;(

Shadow of the Colossus is probably the best game I can imagine ever playing. The genius, cinematic-like approach to it makes it a supreme experience. That, Metal Gear Solid 3, and Half-Life I & II will go down as my favorite games of all time. But they need not be remade ;)

WarCraft II: the reason I began to love PC games. That's when I became a console/PC gamer hybrid, the best of both worlds. WarCraft II for me was only eclipsed by StarCraft.

There are too many too list. I've enjoyed many games on the PC and saying that only one was the best would be a lie. So I've listed a couple that have really stuck with me and would not mind playing again.

Doom
This was the PC game that started it all for me. I just loved the simple gameplay involved where the whole objective was to find the 'exit' and progress to the next level, with hoards of shit to blast on the way.

Deus Ex
Another FPS with RPG elements thrown in. Too bad that the sequel was a load of rubbish.

Warcraft II
Many hours wasted on this and then I had my first taste of multiplayer gaming with it. Of course it was only 2 players at once since we were still using dail-up modems with internet access still $$$ away.

Thats too bad. personally I hated thief III because it was untrue to the first 2 which were much better. (or maybe I just like the old ones better?)

Actually FFVII was made as PC game, but I've never tried that version before.

As long as you disable fast disc loading on your PS2, you should have no problems playing FFVII (I never have, except enabling fast disc loading will freeze the game).

Has anyone here tried Dugeo Keeper? It's a good combination between an RTS/RPG and an fps (for some levels). It's really unique and has a great sadistic style (you can tourture or slap your minions to death).

I miss the days when RTS games were king (caused by the sucess of WarCraft II and Command & Conquer). Sure many of the releases were mediocre at best, but the stampede ensured that some RTS games were original and great.

Wait, what's this PS2 "fast disc load" I'm hearing about? Can someone give me a full explanation of what happens with it on and off, and if any benefits towards the life of the console can be achieved from it?


Also, StarCraft (Brood War) is, as we've already determined, a great game. Since Blizzard has already lost too many original employees to be brave enough to make a sequel, I think they should port StarCraft: Brood War to the Revolution and integrate it into the Battle.net network ;) (assuming Nintendo's voice-to-text software is going to be amazing, as a keyboard + RevMote combo might be a little awkward)

There are many games I still remember and value highly after several years (I'd second the votes for Final Fantasy VII anytime, btw), but I'll only name one item now:

The Tex Murphy series. As detective adventures in a unique SciFi/Noir style, they have no equal in anything that's been released before or after them. They were among the first games to use video technology to the extent of being an interactive movie/adventure hybrid. Unfortunately, this also means that the quality of the in-game video is pretty horrendous compared to today's standards, which is why I would die for a modern remake or sequel.

With Microsoft owning the rights for more than 7 years now and refusing to produce a sequel (which the designers would LOVE to do), this will probably remain a dream, though.

The fast disc load makes the PS1 CDs spin at 24x as opposed to the 2x? speeds the PS1 uses. While this can dramatically decrease load times, it also can lock games that require specific timings based on how long the original took to load a game.

How could I have forgotten? Before Worms and all that, there was Scorched Earth. Back in the old DOS and Windows 3.1 days there was the occasional school computer that had this game on there, and we all loved it. Bringing that back would be great. I wonder if anyone was ever crazy enough to play through all the max number of rounds, 1,000? I figured only some guy assigned to a space station in orbit or a lab in Antarctica all by himself for some very extended period would do something like that to pass the time.

(Death by Death's Head!!!)

Yeah, that game kicked ass. Fans have remade the game in 3D, it plays pretty good and online with stats and all to fight about :)
http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/

World of Xeen *Sighs*
What an amazing Game.
You first bought Clouds of Xeen, which had an incredible intro, great music and was very easy to play. You admired the new engine and graphics, compared to Isles of Terra and how cool the new monsters and spells looked (The gloomy, orange sky seriously helped give this game atmosphare, it was so *out there*).

Then later you got Darkside of Xeen, installed them both and gasped at the sheer size of the world, the amount of monsters, quests, spells and great storyline.

I miss those days :/

Ultima 7/2.
I read about the game in a magazine and when they explained how many screens the first town was, I *knew* I had to get it!
Then they told about the spells, about the intricate story, the lifelike behaviour of the citizens, inclusive working, going to the pub and at nights into bed and I think I had a little orgasm right there.

I bought the game as soon as possible, not even waiting for localisation, and spend NIGHTS playing through it.
Heck, I remember sitting for a few hours in Moonshadow, simply watching the NPCs going about their lifes, and I seriously mourned as the banes slaughtered everyone.
This was a game for the ages!

I so wish they would remake it, in a current day engine.. or heck, give us another WELL done part!

Speaking of RTS games, the best two game that I've ever played in this genre were Seven Kingdoms and Warlords Battlecry II/III.

With Seven Kingdoms, it's like a standard RTS, where you gather resources and such, but it also includes different win options, like trading a guy to death, outright buying another kingdom, using your spies to infiltrate his kingdom and usurp his power, as well as the standard make a million guys and march on his head. I thought it worked really well (the second one wasn't quite as good I found, as it was horribly unbalanced towards the Frytans, or monsters).

Warlords Battlecry is Warcraft 2, except with tons more races, as as the most important, a Hero, that you keep with you in every ongoing battle to influence the outcome. You can build your hero to be a warrior and beat down other guys (just beware of assassins...), or a wizard, assassin as previously mentioned, summoner, resource manager...there are a ton of options. Your hero gains experience and becomes more powerful with each subsequent battle (providing he survives of course), and you can gain artifacts and such to help more.

Both games are definately worth trying out, if only to hear the voices from the Undead race...

I'll give a shoutout to Liero here. It's a freeware game (so google it to get it) and is like a real time version of Worms. It's incredibly fun for a DOS game and has great action. If you run Windows 2000/XP, get LieroXtreme, same idea, with newer and better features.