Your top 9 games [(-2023 EDITION-)]

[Elthosian]

Thief games are overrated here. It's not that they aren't good, but they are not as great as the hivemind would have you believe. This is coming from someone who played them when they originally came out.

I’m not even debating the Thief games being the greatest games ever. I’m just specifically pointing to the bit where New Vegas is somehow a better pick than Thief 2.

Thief games might be better at what they do than New Vegas, but New Vegas is an open world RPG, which puts it much higher than a stealing/sneaking oriented stealth game. There is a reason why stealth games are relatively few in number, sneaking around and stealing stuff is not as fun for most people as fighting, getting better gear, participating in dialogue, exploring, and everything else that a fully fledged RPG offers.

New Vegas is an open-world RPG whose only above average elements are plot/dialogue and C&C. Combat sucks and level design is mediocre. Exploration is serviceable but far from the best we've seen in the genre.

Thief not only has superb stealth mechanics, it also has some of the best designed levels in the history of gaming. They're so good that if you took them and copypasted the most barebones RPG character progression system you can imagine on top of it, it would win the Codex RPG of the year contest by a huge margin. Yet, it doesn't really need that, the variety of tools and approaches for doing stealth alone are already more than enough to feel motivated to check every corner. Why would I want to get +1 defense with a new armor or a bunch of crafting materials when I can steal nice treasure and use it to get some nice arrows and gadgets?

Might also add that Thief did interactive narrative elements much better than most games that came after: by having the player overhear enemy grunts talking and find hand-written letters instead of putting half the lore in emails and recordings you find in dead bodies*

*more of a rant toward SS than FNV.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

The first two Thief games also have some pretty fantastic first person melee combat despite the whole point of the game being to avoid combat. They’ve got better melee combat than any Bethesda game has ever had despite Bethesda’s games being combat centric, and the Elder Scrolls series being a fantasy series with sword fights being the major way you’ll likely do combat. I’d say that until Breakdown came around in 2004, the Thief games had the best first person melee combat of any game around.

The melee combat was so good in Thief it was a little mind boggling that they removed it in Thief: Deadly Shadows.

By the time Bethesda was up to Skyrim, and the sword combat and stealth still sucked, it was pretty aggravating. Its like: You stupid motherfuckers, Thief came out like 13 years ago, just rip this shit off you fucking hacks.

 

[Lemming42]

Ended up in the shit for saying this on here a while back but the big sticking point for me with Thief is still the blackjack. Thief TDP is one of the best games ever made but fuck I hate the blackjack. There's not only no reason to ever use the sword as long as you have the blackjack, but there's no reason to even sneak. Combine with the plentiful flash bombs, which let you knock people out from the front after they've already seen you, and the game turns into slapstick.

Obviously if you choose to restrain your blackjack use and do a ghost run, then the experience is incredible and like nothing released before or since, but that's a hell of a restriction to put on yourself when the game is outright encouraging you to hop around like a tard and bonk everyone. Plus if you play on the hardest difficulty you'll end up cracking and using the blackjack anyway because it's too much of a pain in the cock to comb the whole level for valuables to hit the target when all the guards are still walking around.

I always wished it was a chloroform bottle (or cool fantasy variant) instead, with like three uses per level. Or even better, that guards would wake up and raise the alarm after being KO'd (which could bring in a few other cool mechanics - having to lock unconscious guards away in closets, with the risk that they may be heard banging on the door after they awaken if another guard gets close enough to hear). It's a shame that future stealth games like SC and Dishonored decided "actually, permanently knocking people out should be even easier than it was in Thief". I like Dishonored a lot but the game is such a joke when you can press your magic ctrl key to choke literally anyone out in an instant and have the game suck your dick by telling you you're a big pro who's gonna get the good ending, even though your playstyle is functionally identical to if you'd stabbed everyone in the back instead. Doubly so in Dishonored 2 where you can KO people who've already seen you by just sprinting at them.

 

[Elthosian]

Ended up in the shit for saying this on here a while back but the big sticking point for me with Thief is still the blackjack. Thief TDP is one of the best games ever made but fuck I hate the blackjack. There's not only no reason to ever use the sword as long as you have the blackjack, but there's no reason to even sneak. Combine with the plentiful flash bombs, which let you knock people out from the front after they've already seen you, and the game turns into slapstick.

Obviously if you choose to restrain your blackjack use and do a ghost run, then the experience is incredible and like nothing released before or since, but that's a hell of a restriction to put on yourself when the game is outright encouraging you to hop around like a tard and bonk everyone. Plus if you play on the hardest difficulty you'll end up cracking and using the blackjack anyway because it's too much of a pain in the cock to comb the whole level for valuables to hit the target when all the guards are still walking around.

I always wished it was a chloroform bottle (or cool fantasy variant) instead, with like three uses per level. Or even better, that guards would wake up and raise the alarm after being KO'd (which could bring in a few other cool mechanics - having to lock unconscious guards away in closets, with the risk that they may be heard banging on the door after they awaken if another guard gets close enough to hear). It's a shame that future stealth games like SC and Dishonored decided "actually, permanently knocking people out should be even easier than it was in Thief". I like Dishonored a lot but the game is such a joke when you can press your magic ctrl key to choke literally anyone out in an instant and have the game suck your dick by telling you you're a big pro who's gonna get the good ending, even though your playstyle is functionally identical to if you'd stabbed everyone in the back instead. Doubly so in Dishonored 2 where you can KO people who've already seen you by just sprinting at them.

I don’t see anything objectionable in your assessment. I used the blackjack more or less frequently and had the same impression, yet at the time I played (late 2000s or so) I simply assumed they made KOs permanent to avoid dealing with AI routines for enemies waking each other up and how to prevent it from feeling inconsistent if they didn’t act much more cautiously afterward.

Just like with Deus Ex’s gunplay, the limitations always struck me as the result of a massive development having to cut corners somewhere. Better games would come in future decades, I thought…

 

[Ash]

Can't have Arx Fatalis but not Ultima Underworld. I like Arx Fatalix, but everything in it, Ultima Underworld didn't just inspire, it did a lot better.

Fake news. There are many things Arx did better than UW. Controls, sound design, visuals/art direction, some of the RPG systems, sense of realism, actually having full screen viewport, soundtrack consisting of unique tracks per area not just the same tune on repeat, and then some. There are also indeed many things UW did better too, but 11 years of technological advancement (1991-2002) really provides contrast here.

 

[Eisen]

I killed everyone every hammerite in Thief 1 with the sword, lol.

 

[Lady Error]

 

[Tyranicon]

I killed everyone every hammerite in Thief 1 with the sword, lol.

Knock out.

Place in fire.

Dance around the charnel pyre.

 

[KIss My Ass]

Making a grid looks like work. I'm not doing that. Ordering the list is also work so I'm also not doing that.

Resident Evil Remake
Demon's Souls
Dark Souls
Dark Souls 2
Bloodborne
Diablo
Silent Hill 3
Dino Crisis 2
Diablo 2
Twisted Metal 2

I spent about 1 minute thinking that up so probably not very accurate. Twisted Metal 2 is an iffy one because I doubt I could ever go back to that and have fun with it. Just a pure nostalgia choice.

 

[Ash]

The only 90s games in your list are Diablo, Twisted Metal 2 and Dino Crisis 2, which are all OK at best.
The rest are all Souls games (good, but largely all the same game) and the REtardmake.

Knew you didn't actually play games, instead just drinking yourself into a stupor and ranting dumb bullshit.

 

[Spacer's Nugget]

3x3

I'll try something different:

Left to right, top to bottom: Deus Ex, Noita, У тилу ворога, Bloodlines, Fallout, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Dino Crisis, XCOM and Hitman.

 

[Gromlintroid]

Dark Souls
Dune 2000
Starcraft: Brood War
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Deus Ex
Duke Nukem 3D
Homeworld
Diablo 2
Half Life 2

Not really in an order, also, 9 is dumb, why not 10?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Not doing the grid-thing, games are put forth in alphabetical order, these are my personal preferences (meaning a lot of good games I have yet to play will not appear):

Broforce
Doom (token representative for Doom 1+2, technically applies to both games due to how similar they are)
Parodius
Psychonauts 1
Star Control 2: The Ur-Quan Masters
Terraria
Thief: The Dark Project (token representative of TDP+TMA, technically applies to both games due to how similar they are)
UFO: Enemy Unknown (because that's what it was called here back in the day, and that's what I'll always call it)
Ultima 7 (both parts and both expansion packs)

EDIT: Apologies, but I just remembered a game that should be in there, but isn't. Corrected.

 

[KIss My Ass]

REtardmake

Oh you're one of those people. You should probably stay tf away from me. REmake is the greatest survival horror game ever made. Pure perfection. Go fuck your whore mom, assuming she hasn't died of a heroin overdose yet.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Apologies, but I just remembered a game that should be in there, but isn't. Corrected.

Sounds easier than my, top 4 are completely fixed and then I just fill the rest before "what about x/y/z/aaargh" -voices come, style.

 

[Zenithsan]

now the real one
*FF7 is the PC version with HD backgrounds and new translation

 

[kangaxx]

In no order:

Deus Ex
System Shock 2
Dungeon Keeper
BG
BG 2
Champions of Krynn because I must have played that series 100 times as a kid and it got me into RPGs
Tomb Raider
Counter Strike up to 1.6, beta versions preferred.. used to play CSGN with a clan, scene was actually great fun at the time
Grim Fandango

It's pretty hard to whittle it down to 9. If you limit it to post 2010 games I'd probably struggle to even think of 9.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Darkwood perhaps shouldn't be there, maybe, but it's my favorite indie game at this current point in time.
Also Doom should perhaps be there instead of Duke 3D. Fucking impossible to decide. So many games I wanted to list.
Maybe one day I will resurrect my top 100 list.

Can't have Arx Fatalis but not Ultima Underworld. I like Arx Fatalix, but everything in it, Ultima Underworld didn't just inspire, it did a lot better.

Thief games are overrated here. It's not that they aren't good, but they are not as great as the hivemind would have you believe. This is coming from someone who played them when they originally came out.

I’m not even debating the Thief games being the greatest games ever. I’m just specifically pointing to the bit where New Vegas is somehow a better pick than Thief 2.

Thief games might be better at what they do than New Vegas, but New Vegas is an open world RPG, which puts it much higher than a stealing/sneaking oriented stealth game. There is a reason why stealth games are relatively few in number, sneaking around and stealing stuff is not as fun for most people as fighting, getting better gear, participating in dialogue, exploring, and everything else that a fully fledged RPG offers.

Stealth games on average probably do better than most RPGs, especially when RPGs were still truly RPGs as opposed to action games with skill trees or something.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best selling “RPGs” of the 21st century and it’s largely just a stealth game with a few unrelated side activities.

Uhh, I completed Cyberpunk without using any stealth. It's an RPG, with multiple ways to play it. And dialogue. And driving. And a bunch of other stuff that Thief doesn't have.

Thief games are overrated here. It's not that they aren't good, but they are not as great as the hivemind would have you believe. This is coming from someone who played them when they originally came out.

I’m not even debating the Thief games being the greatest games ever. I’m just specifically pointing to the bit where New Vegas is somehow a better pick than Thief 2.

Thief games might be better at what they do than New Vegas, but New Vegas is an open world RPG, which puts it much higher than a stealing/sneaking oriented stealth game. There is a reason why stealth games are relatively few in number, sneaking around and stealing stuff is not as fun for most people as fighting, getting better gear, participating in dialogue, exploring, and everything else that a fully fledged RPG offers.

New Vegas is an open-world RPG whose only above average elements are plot/dialogue and C&C. Combat sucks and level design is mediocre. Exploration is serviceable but far from the best we've seen in the genre.

Thief not only has superb stealth mechanics, it also has some of the best designed levels in the history of gaming. They're so good that if you took them and copypasted the most barebones RPG character progression system you can imagine on top of it, it would win the Codex RPG of the year contest by a huge margin. Yet, it doesn't really need that, the variety of tools and approaches for doing stealth alone are already more than enough to feel motivated to check every corner. Why would I want to get +1 defense with a new armor or a bunch of crafting materials when I can steal nice treasure and use it to get some nice arrows and gadgets?

Might also add that Thief did interactive narrative elements much better than most games that came after: by having the player overhear enemy grunts talking and find hand-written letters instead of putting half the lore in emails and recordings you find in dead bodies*

*more of a rant toward SS than FNV.

Meh, like I said overrated. What can be so great about level design when you are only sneaking around and looking for shit for mission goals? And come on, how many levels in first 2 Thief games where you are just crawling around some mines or caves, dealing with annoying undead.

The first two Thief games also have some pretty fantastic first person melee combat despite the whole point of the game being to avoid combat. They’ve got better melee combat than any Bethesda game has ever had despite Bethesda’s games being combat centric, and the Elder Scrolls series being a fantasy series with sword fights being the major way you’ll likely do combat. I’d say that until Breakdown came around in 2004, the Thief games had the best first person melee combat of any game around.

The melee combat was so good in Thief it was a little mind boggling that they removed it in Thief: Deadly Shadows.

By the time Bethesda was up to Skyrim, and the sword combat and stealth still sucked, it was pretty aggravating. Its like: You stupid motherfuckers, Thief came out like 13 years ago, just rip this shit off you fucking hacks.

The melee combat you couldn't use (on harder difficulty)? With animations so shitty, you can't tell what the enemy is doing until it's too late? Let's not use Bethesda as a watermark for melee combat please.

Can't have Arx Fatalis but not Ultima Underworld. I like Arx Fatalix, but everything in it, Ultima Underworld didn't just inspire, it did a lot better.

Fake news. There are many things Arx did better than UW. Controls, sound design, visuals/art direction, some of the RPG systems, sense of realism, actually having full screen viewport, soundtrack consisting of unique tracks per area not just the same tune on repeat, and then some. There are also indeed many things UW did better too, but 11 years of technological advancement (1991-2002) really provides contrast here.

UUW/Arx are games where gameplay is literally figuring shit out. To proceed through levels, you have to solve many "puzzles" or figure out how to unlock the level. This is the central core of these games, unlike any other lineage. And in this aspect, UUW is miles ahead of Arx. All the puzzles in UUW were brilliant, whereas in Arx, they were a mixed bag, some were great, some were shit.

 

[Elthosian]

Meh, like I said overrated. What can be so great about level design when you are only sneaking around and looking for shit for mission goals? And come on, how many levels in first 2 Thief games where you are just crawling around some mines or caves, dealing with annoying undead.

Unless you mean Thief and Thief Gold, Thief 2 has a single level with undead and it's not even in a cave.

As for your other question, IDK man, plenty of people here were able to get a lot out of the level design. Not every game needs to take a shot at a myriad of mechanics, doing a couple things very well is just fine.

 

[D_X]

Hatchet job sticking the covers together, I can't be arsed to do better
Also, I'm cheating by putting Warcraft 2 together with the expansion.

 

[KIss My Ass]

Dino Crisis 2 is legit one of the best games ever made. I'd argue it tops the first 3 Resident Evils. I probably played through it 10 times. I can't claim that about any other game.

 

[Ash]

It's merely OK. Short, mostly linear, not much soundtrack or story to speak of, simple but OK gameplay. Probably better than Dino Crisis 1 but they're both low standards games.
Parasite Eve 2 is a much better classic Resident Evil clone.

 

[KIss My Ass]

One of my biggest ragrets from the PSX era was never getting to try out the Parasite Eve games. Got me there I guess.

 

[Ash]

It's pretty hard to whittle it down to 9. If you limit it to post 2010 games I'd probably struggle to even think of 9.

+many other mostly indie games I'd love to list. There's still a few gems to discover in the age of decline, thankfully.

One of my biggest ragrets from the PSX era was never getting to try out the Parasite Eve games. Got me there I guess.

You have a PC, you can emulate them (+with controller and HDMI to TV) at any time. without spending a single cent.

 

[KIss My Ass]

You hypocritical sack of shit. You have the gall to criticize my picks and then you list Dying Light and fucking Doom Eternal. Give me one good reason right this instant for why I shouldn't put you on ignore.