What video game from any era did you most enjoy playing?
GoldenEye on N64 probably the game that kept me most enthralled and the game I most remember seeming to be head and shoulders above everything else around at the time.
i lost a lot of my teenage years to counter-strike
i bet these are all going to be from 20ish years ago when we all had more time
there’a obviously some great more recent games but i simply can’t see how i would have the spoons to sit down and play eg the last of us or red dead redemption through to completion these days
True chill, I tried to play breath of the wild when it came out and really enjoyed it, but I don't have time to play regularly and so every time I picked it up after a gap I forgot the controls, what I was supposed to be doing and generally got lost.
"every time I picked it up after a gap I forgot the controls, what I was supposed to be doing and generally got lost."
This happened to me with Red Dead Redemption 2 - got about 15 per cent of the way through it and gave up for exactly this reason. Last serious game I played...
That was the brilliance of FF7, an open world game on PS1 in 1997. Incredible freedom to explore. Nothing like it at the time and subsequent FF games couldn't recreate it.
It's not that hard to play modern stuff. Just choose to not spend hundreds of hours a year watching prestige TV shows and use that time on games instead.
Eve was probably the most immersive though, particularly the economic system. I still fondly remember the only business I have ever founded and run, real world or not, running to low-sec space, buying weapons, recycling them into their component minerals and selling same on the minerals market (which was entirely player driven). And the endless player wars of course. I still have the diary I wrote, it covers about two years worth of playing.
Got dumped by my 1st proper gf over Champ Manager 3 as well - missed her parents’ anniversary do over a prolonged transfer saga. I did point out that the proceeds (a whopping 1.5m) would allow me to completely remodel the squad and challenge for promotion fell on deaf ears
Street Fighter 2 Turbo on SNES - an almost perfect game
Super Bomberman with 4 players also great social game
UN Squadron - Bit more niche, but still haven’t played a better scrolling shooter. Have got Capcom Arcade Stadium on the kids’ Switch, but none of the arcade shooters are as good as that, not even Carrier Air Wing which is closely based on UN Squadron.
Doom on a LAN also good, but I was sh1te at that compared to my brother and his gimpy friends, which tainted the experience.
solo games - GTA San Andreas - loved the slightly wacky storyline and humour, which really stepped up from the Liberty City and Vice City versions. Also the way you could sack off missions and just dick around was fun (albeit not exclusive to San Andreas).
Wasted far too much time playing Champ Man 00/01 version (where Man U still had luminaries such as Henning Berg and Ronnie Wallwork on their books), think I took it up to about 2017 before getting bored.
Eve was probably the most immersive though, particularly the economic system. I still fondly remember the only business I have ever founded and run, real world or not, running to low-sec space, buying weapons, recycling them into their component minerals and selling same on the minerals market (which was entirely player driven). And the endless player wars of course. I still have the diary I wrote, it covers about two years worth of playing.
LOL - at uni I lived with 2 guys who played a lot of Eve (they were in a corporation called Goonfleet if that means anything to you). I never played but they often regaled me with tales of the political machinations at the top of the corporation (something along the lines that someone who had risen through the ranks to become second in command was actually a fifth columnist and did a lot of damage to the corporation's assets). It all looked very nerdy but I can sort of see the appeal.
Occasionally play Fortnite on my son's Xbox but am at best a v reluctant gamer these days.
Great thing about Golden Eye is unusually it was a brilliant multiplayer and single player campaign. I never felt the later similar Call of Duty games could touch it, despite more computing power to play with.
was pretty good but never felt the level design of the Call of Duty games was as good as GoldenEye and the multplayer somehow never quite as addictive.
Daley Thompson Decathlon on my Dad's very early apple with a floppy disk. It mostly consisted of banging the space bar to run faster but it was such a novelty at the time. Then it played the national anthem of whichever athlete won. After that probably Sonic on the Sega.
Manic Miner, Hunter, R-Type II, Sensible Soccer, all CM/FM from 1992 to present day. Age of Empires, Sim City (various iterations), GTA V. The city sim seems to have died a death. Playing computer games is one of the many things I wish I got time to do.
A m7 of mine at uni (Dave) lived in a very eccentric shared house with some fairly unusual folk. They played a lot of Bomberman and watched a lot of WWE - they even made a championship belt for whoever the Bomberman Champion was at the time
one night a particular housemate - who had had a pretty patchy run - agreed to play a ‘retirement match’. He promptly lost and was banned from ever playing again. Other housemates would ensure the game was removed at the end of each session and locked away just in case he tried to sneak downstairs to play it in the middle of the night
“Daley Thompson Decathlon on my Dad's very early apple with a floppy disk. It mostly consisted of banging the space bar to run faster but it was such a novelty at the time.”
Are you sure it wasn’t z and x to run and space to jump?
Lots of great nominations on the thread but nothing approaching the brilliance of elite.
Another vote for Sensible World of Soccer. On the Amiga, a few other good ones on there too. I was stupid enough to ditch that computer in a skip, should have kept it.
Snes - Super Mariokart and Link to the Past. Mariokart I played forever.
PS - Metal Gear Solid I was obsessed with
PS2 - GTA 3 blew me away. Would spend hours collecting the cars for the garages alone, then days flying the dodo. If you fly it into the stadium it crashes the game.
Championship Manager in the mid to late 90s - as someone else said above, when it was fun and not a chore.
I lost entire weeks of my life to Elite 2 (Frontier) and also Elite 3 (First Encounters).
Eve Online was excellent but tsadly not compatible with a busy professional life and real world socialising - I joined at the start so would now be one of the top players if I had stuck around.
Fallout New Vegas - for me easily the best game of the series. A story line with so many different branches and possible endings - and so many side quests - also good fun just to wander around use it as a 'sandbox' - especially if you have actually been to some of the locations in real life.
Stalker - Shadow of Chernobyl. Super atmospheric and some genuine sh1t your pants moments.
I could never get into FPS, except for Goldeneye which should be on my list. Played loads of that as a student along with… Bomberman! And Mario Kart, which may be the only thing I’ve ever been genuinely world class at. Can’t believe I forgot it. Anyway, yeah, I used to play loads of games. Wish I still could.
c64 - elite and a very simple but extremely addictive game that involved a harrier jump jet (can't remember the name) (age 9 to 11)
Amiga - Lemmings (was also briefly obsessed with Nightbreed) (11 to maybe 14)
Gameboy - Tetris and Mario (12 onwards I think)
I never had a SNES/N64/Play Station (deprived youth!) and didn't really play video games from age about 15 until my early 30s. Then I started to get really bored when home alone over the summer in the desert and bought a gaming PC and played a couple first person mission type games a lot but honestly I couldn't tell you the names now.
Recently post getting a PS5 for my son I am spending a lot more time playing FIFA 2022 than is really respectable for a senior professional in his mid 40s. But something in me is determined to stay competitive in matches against my son!
i lost a lot of my teenage years to counter-strike
ocarina of time
Series peaks for my favourite games
Championship manager 01/02
Civilisation IV
Mass Effect 2
That is all.
Mario kart battle mode on SNES.
ah, the early championship manager games, before they got so complicated they went from fun to a chore...
Guitar Hero. I reckon I could still do Bark at the Moon blindfolded, it's seared into my brain.
All the public domain games for the Atari. £2.50 a go and weeks of fun.
i bet these are all going to be from 20ish years ago when we all had more time
there’a obviously some great more recent games but i simply can’t see how i would have the spoons to sit down and play eg the last of us or red dead redemption through to completion these days
Diddy Kong racing on N64 was a vastly superior kart racer to Mario Kart and a favourite in my undergraduate shared house.
golden eye
or tetris
True chill, I tried to play breath of the wild when it came out and really enjoyed it, but I don't have time to play regularly and so every time I picked it up after a gap I forgot the controls, what I was supposed to be doing and generally got lost.
Combo of lack of time and middle age.
Elite. BBC/Commodore 64.
End of thread
this is happening to me with totk cause i can really only play it on weekends and it is driving me crazy
(also the controls are so much more complicated)
Super Mario Bros 3 SNES
Ocarina of Time N64
Half Life PC
Witcher 3 PS4
Dark Souls 3 PS4
Elden Ring PS5
Wot CJ sed.
I think I have spent less than 1 unit of my time on computer games since Tetris
"every time I picked it up after a gap I forgot the controls, what I was supposed to be doing and generally got lost."
This happened to me with Red Dead Redemption 2 - got about 15 per cent of the way through it and gave up for exactly this reason. Last serious game I played...
Tetris. Still good for killing at least 2 hours if I'm on a flight.
shout out to FF7 which was also great
Also Goldeneye. Many many hours spent playing multilayer crowded round a tiny 20 inch telly.
In later years GTA Vice City had me hooked for a long time.
F-Zero X
Batman adventure game for our Amstrad cpc464 tape drive :)
FF7, how could I forget? Completed that sucker twice including once to essentially 100% completion.
I have the strategies for the various weapon battles (emerald, ruby, sapphire etc) seared into my brain.
I reckon I put 1,000 hours into FF7.
Repton 3
i think this is also a function of the move towards “open-world” games as opposed to “now you’re on level 4” or whatever
they can be great but kind of presuppose you have hours of time every day to remember wtf you’re supposed to be doing
whereas crash bandicoot or spyro were just “here’s a new level to do the same stuff”
Red Alert. Can still recall the sound of a tesla coil charging up.
That was the brilliance of FF7, an open world game on PS1 in 1997. Incredible freedom to explore. Nothing like it at the time and subsequent FF games couldn't recreate it.
Sid Meier's Civilisation II
It's not that hard to play modern stuff. Just choose to not spend hundreds of hours a year watching prestige TV shows and use that time on games instead.
Mass Effect 2 definitely.
Miranda Lawson - wood
Doom
Civilisation
Eve was probably the most immersive though, particularly the economic system. I still fondly remember the only business I have ever founded and run, real world or not, running to low-sec space, buying weapons, recycling them into their component minerals and selling same on the minerals market (which was entirely player driven). And the endless player wars of course. I still have the diary I wrote, it covers about two years worth of playing.
SWOS 96/97 - even the menu music makes me feel funny
CIV 4
Age of Empires 2
Champ Man 01/02 almost hit me kicked out of uni so I have mixed feelings about it
Champ man 01/02, there is no debate required
Doom
Quake II
Civ II
Diablo II
Elden Ring
How is yours not Deus Ex?
Elite
Civ2
Honourable mention to lemmings
Everquest
Championship Manager 2. Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Streetfighter 2.
Got dumped by my 1st proper gf over Champ Manager 3 as well - missed her parents’ anniversary do over a prolonged transfer saga. I did point out that the proceeds (a whopping 1.5m) would allow me to completely remodel the squad and challenge for promotion fell on deaf ears
Je ne regrette rien
There have been some greats that absorbed so much time:
Diablo 2
Champ Manager 98
Elite
Half Life 1/2
Oblivion and then Skyrim
Red Alert 2
Civ 2
Gran Tourismo 2
KOTOR 1 and 2
Pokemon
obvs
Ocarina of Time and Ultima 7
Street Fighter 2 Turbo on SNES - an almost perfect game
Super Bomberman with 4 players also great social game
UN Squadron - Bit more niche, but still haven’t played a better scrolling shooter. Have got Capcom Arcade Stadium on the kids’ Switch, but none of the arcade shooters are as good as that, not even Carrier Air Wing which is closely based on UN Squadron.
Doom on a LAN also good, but I was sh1te at that compared to my brother and his gimpy friends, which tainted the experience.
Teens - Elite
20s - Champ Man (various)
30s - Europa Universalis
40s - Skyrim
Was an 05 player until like 15. Nothing else like it.
Half Life 1/2 also for me
Chuckie Egg for BBC in the mid 80s
Oh yeah Elite back in the day. When that came out in the mid 80s it was completely revolutionary.
Goldeneye was great as a multiplayer.
solo games - GTA San Andreas - loved the slightly wacky storyline and humour, which really stepped up from the Liberty City and Vice City versions. Also the way you could sack off missions and just dick around was fun (albeit not exclusive to San Andreas).
Wasted far too much time playing Champ Man 00/01 version (where Man U still had luminaries such as Henning Berg and Ronnie Wallwork on their books), think I took it up to about 2017 before getting bored.
Of recent games, ie those played as an adult, I love Tropico. It's gone downhill since T3 though.
Warren31 May 23 14:44
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Doom
Civilisation
Eve was probably the most immersive though, particularly the economic system. I still fondly remember the only business I have ever founded and run, real world or not, running to low-sec space, buying weapons, recycling them into their component minerals and selling same on the minerals market (which was entirely player driven). And the endless player wars of course. I still have the diary I wrote, it covers about two years worth of playing.
LOL - at uni I lived with 2 guys who played a lot of Eve (they were in a corporation called Goonfleet if that means anything to you). I never played but they often regaled me with tales of the political machinations at the top of the corporation (something along the lines that someone who had risen through the ranks to become second in command was actually a fifth columnist and did a lot of damage to the corporation's assets). It all looked very nerdy but I can sort of see the appeal.
Occasionally play Fortnite on my son's Xbox but am at best a v reluctant gamer these days.
pancakes31 May 23 15:03
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How is yours not Deus Ex?
Heh.
Deus Ex definitely for me.
For pure enjoyment you couldn't beat Perfect Dark and Smash Bros on N64 + cans of nelson and strongbow with the lads.
Great thing about Golden Eye is unusually it was a brilliant multiplayer and single player campaign. I never felt the later similar Call of Duty games could touch it, despite more computing power to play with.
Call of duty: MW2 was pretty brilliant.
was pretty good but never felt the level design of the Call of Duty games was as good as GoldenEye and the multplayer somehow never quite as addictive.
Doom/Doom2 on the PC
Champ Man? This must be some counterfeit version of Pac-Man. We had Munch Man.
Daley Thompson Decathlon on my Dad's very early apple with a floppy disk. It mostly consisted of banging the space bar to run faster but it was such a novelty at the time. Then it played the national anthem of whichever athlete won. After that probably Sonic on the Sega.
Manic Miner, Hunter, R-Type II, Sensible Soccer, all CM/FM from 1992 to present day. Age of Empires, Sim City (various iterations), GTA V. The city sim seems to have died a death. Playing computer games is one of the many things I wish I got time to do.
Elite - I think I had a pirated version on floppy disc
Honorable mention to GTA III San Andreas the last GTA game I every really played.
A m7 of mine at uni (Dave) lived in a very eccentric shared house with some fairly unusual folk. They played a lot of Bomberman and watched a lot of WWE - they even made a championship belt for whoever the Bomberman Champion was at the time
one night a particular housemate - who had had a pretty patchy run - agreed to play a ‘retirement match’. He promptly lost and was banned from ever playing again. Other housemates would ensure the game was removed at the end of each session and locked away just in case he tried to sneak downstairs to play it in the middle of the night
I still chuckle wryly at this from time to time
Halo probably got the most co-op play at Uni. Honourable mentions to GoldenEye and Mariokart, and Champ Man 00/01 etc.
For recent, too many to choose from but Forza Horizon 4 & 5 gets a lot of play between the kids and me.
For vintage, Harrier Attack on the old Amstrad CPC 464!
Edit to add: Total War series...
Monkey Island series for me - hence the username
Love love love Monkey Island
“Daley Thompson Decathlon on my Dad's very early apple with a floppy disk. It mostly consisted of banging the space bar to run faster but it was such a novelty at the time.”
Are you sure it wasn’t z and x to run and space to jump?
Lots of great nominations on the thread but nothing approaching the brilliance of elite.
Of course Deus Ex! What an omission.
Duke Nukem was fun. It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all outta gum.
By era:
Green Beret on spectrum
Wonderboy III on Master System
Sonic on Mdrive
battle arena toshinden on ps1
Tie between goldeneye and mario64 on n64
The Getaway and SSX Tricky on PS II
mariokart on Wii
Children now addicted to Zelda on Switch (which seems to have gazumped pokemon and minecraft)
The Getaway! Forgot all about that, loved wondering around London and seeing the sites while shooting people...
sights
wandering
ZX Spectrum:
Manic Miner / Jet Set Willy
Chaos / Lords of Chaos
Auf Wiedersehen Monty
Magic Knight Series
Football Manager
Lords of Midnight (plus sequel)
Amiga:
Civ I
Champ Man
Monkey Island
Populous II
Syndicate
Sensible Soccer
Prince of Persia
Megalomania
PC:
UFO Series
Various Champ Man and Civ until I got too busy with other stuff.
Space Invaders and Pac-Man in video arcades circa 1975/6. Never played a computer game since.
Donkey kong
lol at Prodigal Sun, rather like saying you looked at Cave paintings and have not bothered with art made after that...
Frogger on a VIC20, in glorious (8 shades of) green
Yeah that too.
Diddy Kong Racing for me too. Damn that game was good. It was also the first game we got with the N64 and first 3D game I ever owned.
Apart from that, Zelda - have 100% completed several times over every 3D game except Skyward Sword, which is unplayable.
Plenty of hours sunk into Goldeneye as well. Fantastic both in single- and multiplayer and I still play it regularly these days.
Another vote for Sensible World of Soccer. On the Amiga, a few other good ones on there too. I was stupid enough to ditch that computer in a skip, should have kept it.
Zelda has been a recent discovery for me - loved BOTW and will get TOTK once family’s exam time is over
Goldeneye. Multiplayer. Good times.
PlayStation - Tekken and Tekken 2.
Sega GameGear - which I loved - Sonic the Hedgehog
On other people's computers:
bobmer command on some sort of late 80s amstrad
chucky egg and frogger on the bbc miro
lemmings on the bbc archimedes
something on the amiga that was an epic platform (may have been monkey island but i dont think so)
Rainbow island on the amiga!
Atari 2600, space invaders
C16 - some fighter jet simulator
C64 - so many. Probably Wizball
Super Nintendo - Mario kart
PS one - wipeout
nintendo game cube - Luigi’s mansion
xbox - gran turismo
xbox 360 to Xbox series x - call of duty
Snes - Super Mariokart and Link to the Past. Mariokart I played forever.
PS - Metal Gear Solid I was obsessed with
PS2 - GTA 3 blew me away. Would spend hours collecting the cars for the garages alone, then days flying the dodo. If you fly it into the stadium it crashes the game.
John Madden American Football on Mega Drive.
Mario Kart and F-Zero on SNES
ISS/Pro-Evo Soccer
Mickey Mouse and the Castle of Illusion and MicroMachines on Megadrive
+1 Goldeneye multi-player.
Championship Manager in the mid to late 90s - as someone else said above, when it was fun and not a chore.
I lost entire weeks of my life to Elite 2 (Frontier) and also Elite 3 (First Encounters).
Eve Online was excellent but tsadly not compatible with a busy professional life and real world socialising - I joined at the start so would now be one of the top players if I had stuck around.
Fallout New Vegas - for me easily the best game of the series. A story line with so many different branches and possible endings - and so many side quests - also good fun just to wander around use it as a 'sandbox' - especially if you have actually been to some of the locations in real life.
Stalker - Shadow of Chernobyl. Super atmospheric and some genuine sh1t your pants moments.
FF VII. Couldnt believe when they killed off Aeris.
Sensible World of Soccer. I took Woking from the conference to the champions league in 6 seasons, that kind of stuff doesn't go unnoticed.
FF X.
Vice City. San Andreas probably technically better in a lot of ways, but the music, story, humour and general feel of Vice City was game changing.
Various Street Fighters.
Originally- paperboy
then - tetris
then football manager - cherno samba etc
now mario kart 8
And chuckle egg on the bbc at achool
and lemmings on my dads pc
I could never get into FPS, except for Goldeneye which should be on my list. Played loads of that as a student along with… Bomberman! And Mario Kart, which may be the only thing I’ve ever been genuinely world class at. Can’t believe I forgot it. Anyway, yeah, I used to play loads of games. Wish I still could.
surprised by relative lack of enthusiasm for platform games and scrolly shooters. Some of you lot need a good R-Typing
Ok - by era
Spectrum: Matchday II
SNES: MarioKart/Street fighter II
N64: GoldenEye/Diddy Kong Racing
PS2: GTA:San Adreas
PS3: Red Dead Redemption/SkyRim
Doom was great but Wolfenstein 3D even better.
“Mein Leiben!”
Remember Hitler with the gattling guns at the end?
I think I have 1000 hours in total war warhamer 2? maybe 600 in stellaris?
By platform
c64 - elite and a very simple but extremely addictive game that involved a harrier jump jet (can't remember the name) (age 9 to 11)
Amiga - Lemmings (was also briefly obsessed with Nightbreed) (11 to maybe 14)
Gameboy - Tetris and Mario (12 onwards I think)
I never had a SNES/N64/Play Station (deprived youth!) and didn't really play video games from age about 15 until my early 30s. Then I started to get really bored when home alone over the summer in the desert and bought a gaming PC and played a couple first person mission type games a lot but honestly I couldn't tell you the names now.
Recently post getting a PS5 for my son I am spending a lot more time playing FIFA 2022 than is really respectable for a senior professional in his mid 40s. But something in me is determined to stay competitive in matches against my son!
Too many greats in the 1980s speccy/C64 era to be able to pick a fave.
L8 90s on the LPC it was Resident Evil.
Star Wars Battlefront on PS about 6 or 7 years ago.
Now it's just World of Tanks Blitz on my phone.
Ohh, Chucky Egg on the BBC Micro. Primitive, but fantastic.
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