Has any game just blown you away?

[Molondo]

Donkey kong for The SNES.
Starcraft, I have been playing Warcraft2 prior, which can explain why.
Half-life.

 

[letdown427]

Metal Gear Solid (Playstation)
Far Cry
Live For Speed
Interstate '76
Gran Turismo (Playstation)

Almost blew me away:

FEAR
X3: Reunion

 

[duragezic]

Quake1/QW/the many mods like TF - my start of online FPS gaming and probably the best times ever (modem and Kali games of Duke3d, Doom, etc were good, but not as good as 16 player TCP/IP Quakeworld!)
Ninja Gaiden - OMFG does this game rock. The graphics are amazing, good story and FMV scenes, very long, quite difficult, and many many ways to kill things. The combat is so fluid... Ryu is l33t. nothing like Soul Calibur or DOA even comes close to the speed and response of NG controls/combat IMO.
Half Life 2 - Very immersive, Source engine is awesome overall, one of my all-time favorite games
Half Life 1 - Xen part was lame, but the first 1/3 or 1/2 was pretty groundbreaking. And though the game/engine wasn't anything special, there was some excellent mods incluidng CS, DoD, and Firearms.


Runners-up:
FEAR - for a short time, but not really impressive after a few days of playing
Oblivion - I would probably like this more if I had played it more than 2 hours (no time)
Far Cry - Only played this a couple of hours, but good overall, jungle/tropical graphics were amazing at the time
Joint Operations - 75 vs 75 man FPS fighting, but non-MMO, lots to do
Quake 2 - THe mods like Action Quake 2 were very good
UT 99/2004 - Some of the best, polished, deathmatch shooters
C&C/Red Alert series - All 4 until Generals were awesome

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: murban135
Battlezone
Homeworld
Far Cry
Rome Total War

Dude, Battlezone was such a sleeper. That was one of the best games ever made that no one knew about.

The interface on it was amazing. You could control a small RTS-ish army from the cockpit of your hovertank while still engaged in tank-on-tank dogfights and doing tony-hawk moves of the 'half-pipe' surface craters.

Best interface of all time. Yeah that game blew me away.

The other one that blew me away was the first time I saw Quake running as GLQuake on my Voodoo card. I still play that game.

The teamplay of Tribes blew me away too. Everyone since has stolen concepts from it but even the latest and greatest of today don't match it.

The immersiveness of HL.

The fear of playing Doom 3 in a dark room with dolby surround.

The crack-like addictiveness of Diablo II.

The thoroughbred exotic sports car handling of Quake III's physics, controls and netcode.

The deep strategy and low-effort micromanagement of Empire Earth 1.

The Sheer Style of MDK 1. (hated 2).

The sense of adventure and exploration in Ultima III & V, and Morrowwind (mebe Oblivion), Legend of Zelda.

Doom & Duke 3d of course.

The First UT (rest have been mediocre).

Wing Commander (we need a REAL sequel!)

F-Zero, Mario Andretti racing (best racing games ever).

Chuck Yeagers advanced flight sim 1.0, SimX ..Best flight sims ever made.

American McGee's Alice ... had that 'just read a good book' satisfying feeling at the end.

Descent ... nothing like flying down a long curvy hallway into an open cavern and realizing the far cavern wall is actually the floor and you've been facing down the whole time.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

I have been blown away by every Half-Life game. I always expect the expansions to be either boring, or repetitive, but I'm always wrong, their great games. As for the actual games (HL1 and HL2) those games threw me outta my chair and out the window. The only other game that came close was Medal of Honor Allied Assault. That is the best WW2 FPS to date. The way the characters reacted to events (like seeing a nebelwerfer) and just all the crazy things you do (like being at the top of a hill on a mounted gun shooting at enemies while waiting for your friend to get the engine started) made it a fantastic game.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: Bateluer
i get the feeling that developers have to spend far more time on the graphics engine today than before which leaves less time for story, gameplay and polishing. there are very few (if any) 40 hour single player games nowadays, for example. not that a game needs to be that friggin long to be good, but given the same development cycle, the game studios are pumping out games that are 4 times shorter. and sadly, they don't compensate by making each minute of that experience 4 times better.

I think that's a lot of bull. I grew up since the 286 days, so i grew up with games such as King's Quest, Space Quest, Legend of Kyrandia, etc. If anything, game stories and gameplay can be more developed than ever. We just thought those games were magical, because those were our first, and we were younger.

The team that's writing the story isn't the same team that's coding or creating the animations. If you want long 40+ hrs games, you need to look at those same 40+ hr games you played when you were younger... like the adventures and RPGs. Despite all the fun i had with Quake1, first-person shooter multiplayer today is far more advance than they were with Quake (recently i've been playing COD2).

Adventure and RPGs are far superior today than they were back in the Zelda and Genesis days. You have real 3D movement in a 3D world. You have characters who move around and respond to day-time/night-time schedules... definitely not real randomness, but better than the pixel that was always infront of that specific house.

It's been awhile since i've been 'blown' away... i think EQ was the one that did it for me. The Longest Journey was another one. I'm really waiting for a space-sim that can wow me like Wing Commander did, but take advantage of the technology today (not just the graphics... but the world building like Oblivion).

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: Looney
I think that's a lot of bull. I grew up since the 286 days, so i grew up with games such as King's Quest, Space Quest, Legend of Kyrandia, etc. If anything, game stories and gameplay can be more developed than ever. We just thought those games were magical, because those were our first, and we were younger.

The team that's writing the story isn't the same team that's coding or creating the animations. If you want long 40+ hrs games, you need to look at those same 40+ hr games you played when you were younger... like the adventures and RPGs. Despite all the fun i had with Quake1, first-person shooter multiplayer today is far more advance than they were with Quake (recently i've been playing COD2).

Adventure and RPGs are far superior today than they were back in the Zelda and Genesis days. You have real 3D movement in a 3D world. You have characters who move around and respond to day-time/night-time schedules... definitely not real randomness, but better than the pixel that was always infront of that specific house.

It's been awhile since i've been 'blown' away... i think EQ was the one that did it for me. The Longest Journey was another one. I'm really waiting for a space-sim that can wow me like Wing Commander did, but take advantage of the technology today (not just the graphics... but the world building like Oblivion).

Now, I haven't played many of those old games in a while, so I may be wrong. however, i believe that most FPS games from before were MUCH longer than they are today. Half Life was longer than Half Life 2. Doom was longer than Doom III. Deus Ex was a long game with a ridiculous amount of replayability. Quake, Wolfenstein, etc all took a considerable amount of time to beat. again, i don't remember exact play times, but i feel like i spent much more times with those games than i do with the modern 6-10 hour fps. the same held true with adventure games, such as the Legacy of Time and the Last Express.

Now, to some extent, that wasn't always a good thing. In parts, Half Life reallllly dragged on. And, quake/doom/wolfenstein tended to be pretty damn repetitive. but when games did it right - such as deus ex and the majority of half life - you really felt like you were getting your money's worth.

nowadays, you can blow through a $50 game in a day or two. It's a bit disappointing really. Obviously, RPG's, multiplayer games and RTS are of a different breed, but story driven, single player games are getting awfully short. And my guess is that this is because the overhead of a modern graphics engine has grown out of control.

 

[samduhman]

People are to jaded these days. They keep wanting to be WOWED or they won't buy anything. There are plenty of pc games released every year. So what if they don't have the WOW factor as long as they are FUN.

I buy a couple each month but if I had to pick some which have been extra fun over the past couple years I'd say these.

Company of Heroes
Warhammer 40K Dawn of War
Call of Duty series
Space Rangers 2
Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2
Battlefield 1942
Star Wars Empires at War
Psychonauts
SW: Knights of the Old Republic
Rome Total War
NOLF 1 and 2
UT 2004
World of Warcraft
Sid Meier Pirates
Thief Series
GUN
Rise of Nations and RofLegends
Max Payne 1&2
Alien vs Predator 2
Tron 2
Mafia
Freedom Force
Jedi Knight series
Fable
Grand Theft Auto Vice city and the next one.

Well thats enough. I could easily go on.

Play for the fun not the WOW factor. I just don't think its going to be easy to WOW us long time gamers anymore.

 

[DannyLove]

I got a couple

Quake 2

Unreal Tournament 2005

Warcarft II

Call of Duty

RAINBOW SIX

Ghost Recon

Splinter Cell

Homeworld

Half-Life

and Battlefield 2

 

[Furyline]

Freespace 2 for sure. Probably my favorite PC game
Mafia. One of the best games of this decade
Max Payne. Introduced a very cool, fun gameplay mechanic, that is now unfortunately cliche
Original Splinter Cell. A really fun game, I played through the demo so many times before it came out.
Metroid Prime? I don't know if it wowed me, but I was impressed at the translation to 3d

 

[Hork]

Best platformer ever is still Super Mario 64. I rank it as one of the best video games ever.

 

[melijak]

"Mario Andretti racing (best racing games ever). "

This statement brought some great racing memories. I loved that game.

 

[melijak]

Jagged Allience 2
Rainbow 6 online
Rome total war
freespace 2

And recent discovery-- Xpend rally racing. Great rally racing game. The last one I played that was that much fun was Mobil 1 rally. If you like this type of racing you can find it at BB for 19$.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: samduhman
People are to jaded these days. They keep wanting to be WOWED or they won't buy anything. There are plenty of pc games released every year. So what if they don't have the WOW factor as long as they are FUN.

I'd still be playing games today if they were still FUN to play. It's the same ole crap with each $50 (wtf???) purchase, what a waste of money. And don't even get me started on the meteoric rise in the hardware cost to play the damn things as they are released.

Up until last month I had a top of the line gaming PC, I can afford to keep that up - that's not an issue. But it's such a bad investment and it did nothing for my physical health.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: melijak
"Mario Andretti racing (best racing games ever). "

This statement brought some great racing memories. I loved that game.

Heck yea.

That game gave the best "feel" for a racecar of anything I've seen.

You could not only feel if your tires were cold/warm/worn, you could tell which ones. You could truly "feel" your car drafting the guy in front of you (almost a suction actually) and while it helped you move faster the turbulence would degrade your downforce. If you took damage?? yeah... you felt that alright. One tiny ding on a wing and you could feel which wing it was and your butt was limping to the pits. Balancing the performance gains of a light fuel load with the need to pit was a big factor too.

As far as fun factor: F-Zero from the SNES was the bomb. "Silence" (the green track with 90 degree turns, lots of s-turns & hairpins) was always my favorite track, especially in that 'drifting' lightweight little brown car.

 

[Smilin]

Almost forgot a couple more:

Red Storm Rising - best Sub sim ever. So very accurate too.

Microprose Gunship - the apache sim.

Pirates!

Forsaken - another sleeper no one new about. Kinda like descent without quite as much vertigo but much better graphics and beatiful level designs. The multiplayer was downright viscious.



Someone mentioned some super mario & zelda stuff. I forget the dudes name but the main designer at Nintendo who did this is a legend. His "sense of exploration" he required in his games (zelda, mario, super metroid) was genius.


I think I need to go get a gametap account

 

[Regs]

Resident Evil 1&2. They really got me into video games.

Rome Total war was a sweet suprise. It got me into turn based strat. Even though I played Civ 1&2 before hand.

Quake Arena for Dreamcast (remember that damn thing?). That's the first online player game I played and was addicted. Since I was...I think 13 or 14 at the time I wasn't doing so good with the older players.

 

[MSCoder610]

Let's see...

Duke Nukem 3D (pipebombs around the corner in DukeMatch, hidden tripmines, etc etc- was a ton of fun)
Quake II (pretty good singleplayer, but insanely good multiplayer with mods: Threewave CTF, LMCTF was crazy amounts of fun at the time)
Unreal Tournament (some of the most balanced multiplayer ever - got sucked into this 2003ish, am still playing Instagib CTF to this day in it)
Max Payne (just an amazing game that pulled you in, I remember sitting and playing this like 8 hours a day, was hard to stop with the story)
Half Life 2 (very immersive, the game sucked me in and I finished it in a couple of very long sessions)
Far Cry (took me a while to get into it, but the outdoor environments were just great, sniping through foliage, etc)

Honorable Mention: Prey (some parts were very epic feeling, running around on the mini-planet with stars everywhere around was a major 'wow' moment for me)

 

[marmasatt]

Farcry was real fun while you were playing it. I have to admit I was pretty blown away by the immersive story of HL2. Deus EX maybe for the story. Even newer games like PREY when you hit a couple parts that are new aspects to gaming, or FEAR for the shear chaos of a gunfight, you're like wow games have come along way. But that's the trouble. I'm finding most games barely fun anymore myself, never mind blowing me away. And I know this is all opinon but people seem to be chiming in with just standard games that are merely serviceable. Like GUN for instance, is something you play just to hold you over until newer games come out . Then you sell it on the forums for 10 bucks when you find a couple of games you've been after....