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I love this topic! You got me started (and I can go on about this one forever).
I will go on a video game rush for about 2 weeks straight, twice a year.
These days, I really love:
-
Far Cry 2
-
Call of Duty 1,2, & 4 (3 is really just the same game as
Pacific Assault, isn't it?)
-
NBA Live '08
-
Axis & Allies or
A&A Iron Blizt (which are really old games now, but you don't need great graphics for this type of game) will always be my favorite games even if the computer player is devoid of any sufficient strategic skill.
- I'll play
StarCraft (although I prefer
WC2) from time-to-time because it's HUGE out here in South Korea. Amazing really, because it's the same game as
WarCraft II, which was released 14 years ago (!!!), and it's still a great game; albeit a bit too dated on the graphics side of things. I'll always love the
Blizzard team for their work on
WCII, because I could still run it effectively on a 486, when most games by '95 required at least a Pentium 75.
- I really loved the
Rainbow 6 series a decade ago, and then
Medal of Honor, and now (above)
Call of Duty is the best 1st-person shooter series in my collection. I could go back to
Doom 1 & 2,
Quake,
Duke Nukem (major motion-sickness problem with that one),
Jedi Knight,
Dark Forces to some of the earlier favorites in this genre as well.
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LotsO
Ok I'll admit it... I'm a game freak. I own or have owned every single video game system ever made. I even used to write game programs for my kids to play for the AppleI and then for the Commodore64.
Is your real name
Steve Wozniak or
John Romero by any chance? The
64 was great, well priced, and SOOOOO much better than the "
Vic-20".
Although my parents didn't buy it, we did get the
Magnavox Odyssey (hand-me-down from my Uncle at one point in the early '80s because he had just bought a....
... "
Vectrex" ), although the interest quickly faded because within a couple of months after that, we got the
Intellivision II with the add-on
Intellivoice... "
B... 17... Bomber...!!!" Useless sounds, but LESS useless than the
R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) for the
Nintendo. People always seem to think that
Pong was the first home video game console, but it was in fact the
Odyssey.
I also had a
Sega Master System,
Turbo Graffix-16 - which I traded-in for a -
Sega Genesis (smart move),
Super Nintendo, and the computer ever since (although I've borrowed people's systems at one time or another).
My favorite video games on the first few generations of systems, I'd to with:
-
Astrosmash (
Intellivision)
-
B.C.'s Quest for Tires (
CollecoVision - underrated system and great game)
-
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain (
Intellivision and for
$1
CND in a bargain bin! back in '85)
-
The Activision Decathlon (
ColecoVision/
Atari 2600)
-
Bionic Commando (
NES)
-
Alien Syndrome (
SEGA)
-
Wonder Boy in Monster Land (
SEGA)
-
R-Type (
SEGA)
-
Donkey Kong (
ColecoVision and the best version of the early consoles)
-
Metroid (
NES)
-
Star Control (
SEGA - super awesome game)
-
Zillion & Zillion II (
SEGA)
-
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (
Intellivision)
-
Utopia (
Intellivision... ahead of it's time)
-
Columns (
SEGA)
-
R.C. Pro-Am (
NES)
-
Gorf (
ColecoVision)
-
Super Mario Bros III (
NES)
-
Fantasia: Mickey Mouse Magic (
SEGA - great looking for the time)
-
Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle (
ColecoVision)
-
Revenge of Shinobi (
SEGA)
-
Rygar (
NES)
-
Herzog Zwei (
SEGA)
Side note:
Herzog Zwei is one of those games, that no one talks about, the box-cover is one of those that wasn't thrilling, it's a game more often than not would have been passed over by everyone, and the name is meaningless, but the game itself was exceptional. I used to pick-up
Electronic Gaming Monthly every month at the local pharmacy, and the critic in that '89 issue gave it a poor review.
The only reason I came across it, was because I had credit at an old decrepit comic book & collectible store back in the day, and it was there for basically peanuts. I was even regretting getting it on credit on the bus ride home. That weekend, my best friend and I were wondering why didn't they ever make games like this before, and what's up with
Electronic Gaming Monthly? Did they even insert the cartridge into the machine to play the darn thing, because this is the first real-time strategy game that I can think of (even before
Dune II), and my friend and I couldn't put the controllers down (head-to-head split screen).
Now, if you want to see the most famous blunders in video game history - sometimes cited as the reason for the video game crash of '83 - look no further than
E.T. for the
Atari. Here's a great review on it, done by the somewhat funny
IrateGamer...
I love this topic.
Steed
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