Your favorite games of all time list

[Gilberreke]

I'm basically counting the ones I've played the most, more or less. I've put at least a 1000 hours into each one of these. I keep wanting to write this list, so I figure I'd share :)

Dune (1992):

I can basically speedrun this game at this point, there's just something magical about the whole experience. Part adventure-game, part strategy game, there's really no other game quite like it. Time progresses when you're adventuring, so you give commands to units, then adventure, then check back to see how the troops are doing. The floppy version is better than the CD version I find, but the CD-version has a couple of interesting visual novelties, play both :p

Castle of the Winds (1993):

There's a very dedicated group of people still playing this game, so many years later. So much so, that when development started on Win3mu, the Win3.11 emulator, he had to put "yes, this game will work, I'll make sure" in the FAQ. I know most of these people, as I am one of them. My roguelike of choice.

Donkey Kong Country 1, 2 & 3 (1994 - 1996):

The second one is probably objectively the best game, the third one is my favorite, due to overall polish. If you haven't played these, you should, but most of you have.

Missionforce: Cyberstorm (1996):

There's something about this game, that keeps me coming back. Set in the Earthsiege universe, this is your classic turn-based mech game. You upgrade the cannons, add more lasers or dakka, repeat.

Mafia (2002):

The first one, specifically, the second one did nothing for me and I haven't even tried the third one. If you like open world games and good soundtracks, you have to play this. When I play it, I take it slow and keep to the speed limits, just because the world is so good, I don't feel the need to constantly plow through pedestrians, like with other sandbox driving games.

Fallout: New Vegas (2010):

Bethesda makes nifty engines that enable cool worlds, but they can't design a game to save their lives. Give their engine to a really good game designer and this is what you get. You can easily clock 1000 hours into this game before adding mods. There's also the really excellent Tales of Two Wastelands, that lets you play both New Vegas and Fallout 3 in the same engine.

Minecraft (2010):

I'm still here, aren't I?

[Miss_Kat]

Interesting list! I've never thought much about mine... but I suppose if we're going to base it on playtime (that was actually enjoyed), mine would be: Monster Rancher (1997), Spyro 1 & 2, Psychonauts, The Sims 2 (I could not even begin to imagine how many hours I put into it. several thousands, for sure), GTA (3, Vice City, and 4), The Binding of Isaac, Stardew Valley, and Fallout: New Vegas & Minecraft as well.

Monster Rancher in particular was probably the first game I ever really obsessed over. I filled so many notebooks as a kid, detailing every disc in the house and what monster they yielded, its stats, etc. I probably spent more time doing that then actually playing through the game.

[sargunv]

In no particular order:

Jak 2 and 3

Horizon: Zero Dawn

Rome: Total War

C&C Red Alert 2

SimCity: 4

Cities: Skylines

Kerbal Space Program

Minecraft

Better Than Wolves (I consider this a separate game ;)

[FlowerChild]

Gonna kick it old school and try to go chronological on my biggest addictions over the years:

Robotron
Ultima III
Elite (the original vector graphics one)
Red Baron (original Sierra)
Quake II
Ultima Online
Total Annihilation
Tribes (I & II)
GTA III and onwards
Dead Rising (original)
Rock Band
Minecraft
KSP

[EtherealWrath]

Been gaming almost my entire life (starting when I was about 6 or 7).
I'd love to dig a little deeper into this nostalgia trip, but I just realised I've (somehow) spent 3 hours already.

PC- Win 95/98
(Unknown game)
I can't remember what this game was called. You controlled a steam train, with the screen split into two sections;
The lower section had a top down view of the train and the railway- you had to switch the points over to avoid other trains and collect fuel.
The upper section was a side view, you'd use the smoke from your engine to shoot down planes which were trying to bomb your train into pieces.

Blast Thru
I've seen a lot of brick-breaking arcade games over the years, but this was the first one I've played- and for me the best game of this type. Iconic catchy music, power ups and power downs, level editor, a lot of different brick types (multi-hit, unbreaking, invisible, explosive)- and the campaign levels themselves were well designed, each level felt unique and required a different plan of attack.

Spooky Castle
First RPG/adventure game I had. Cute monsters, but they packed a punch and some levels got rather tricky. Favourites might be the ballroom (essentially a massive arena full of monsters and no protection/cover), the Guestrooms (room clearing/simple puzzles. Few traps thrown in too), and the hidden level at the back of the castle. (a open air labyrinth of floating walkways- tight firefights and some sniping to thin out the monsters).

3D Astro-Blaster
Asteroids type game- with aliens, powerups, mines, and 2nd player option (second player can be human or AI, competitive (friendly fire/kill each other) or cooperative). Soundtrack was quite good too.

Gameboy (original)/GBC
Pokemon Red
Pokemon Gold/Silver
Actually I like all the Pokemon games in general, Red was the first one I had. Gold/Silver had 2 regions and 16 gyms, but didn't feel bloated because of it.

Wario Land II
Detailed levels, and some challenging boss battles. Finally got to the end of it, and had the pleasant surprise of finding alternate routes and multiple endings to clear. Interesting twist compared to other similar games (Super Mario Land), is you're immortal (but not invincible) and getting crushed into a pancake or set on fire can be a good thing (sometimes).

PS1/PS2
Spyro the Dragon (Spyro 1,2,3)
Medal of Honour: Underground
Burnout 3 (and 4)
GTA San Andreas
Dark Cloud
Dark Chronicle (also called Dark Cloud 2)

Flash Games
Canabalt

Modern PC
Audiosurf
Ori and the Blind Forest
Beautifully drawn graphics, smooth fast agile platforming building into some clever puzzles and very intense escape runs. Cinematic soundtrack is just brilliant.
Limbo
Modded Minecraft/Better Than Wolves.

[Daisjun]

I could make a massive list, but I'll just pick a game from each platform that I've put the most hours into:

Sega
Master System: Sonic 1
Genesis: Streets of Rage
Sega CD: Sonic CD
Saturn: Daytona USA
Dreamcast: Crazy Taxi

Nintendo
NES: Kirby's Dream Land
SNES: Street Fighter 2 Turbo
N64: Super Mario 64
Gamecube: SSMB Melee
Wii: Wario Ware Smooth Moves

Sony
PS1: Gran Turismo
PS2: Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec
PS3: Borderlands

Microsoft
Xbox: Halo
Xbox 360: Tony Hawk Project 8
Xbox One: Rare Replay

Handhelds
Gameboy: Super Mario Land
Nintendo DS: Phoenix Wright Trilogy
Nintenedo 3DS: SSMB 3DS
PSP: Ridge Racer 1/2

PC Games
C64: Test Drive 2
MS DOS: Blood
Windows 95/98: Tony Hawk 2
2000s: TF2 (pre hats and other bullshit)
2010s: Rocket League

Others
Arcade: Initial D
Atari: Berzerk
Neo Geo: Metal Slug 2
3DO: Warhammer 40K Space Hulk
Mobile: Angry Birds

OK, so that's still a massive list...

[Gilberreke]

Oooh, I love that this thread got some traction. I love "top 10" list style things and this thread is very fun to go through.

Honorable mentions, because I see them popping up for others:

Pokemon:

I really like Pokemon first generation. It's extremely well-designed and I love the scope. Some of the other games have a little too much going on for me (Gold/Silver felt too large, many games introduce too many pokemon). I put a lot of hours into the franchise as a whole.

The Sims:

I still play this from time to time, but I outgrew it. I put an INORDINATE amount of hours into the first one though. Probably the first online community I joined, first modding experience (both as a user and as a creator), etc. Before the sims, I had always modded games, but never as part of a larger community. The Sims was when I started downloading other's content, sharing my own, etc. Good memories.

Also great to see some really cool games like Ridge Racer, Spyro and Red Baron showing up. While these had less of an impact on me, I still had a blast playing them (especially Ridge Racer 64 and Spyro: Year of the Dragon).

I also love seeing the oddball games that people enjoy. Might have to pick a few. Keep em coming :)

[Daisjun]

Oooh, I love that this thread got some traction. I love "top 10" list style things and this thread is very fun to go through.
Pokemon:

I really like Pokemon first generation. It's extremely well-designed and I love the scope. Some of the other games have a little too much going on for me (Gold/Silver felt too large, many games introduce too many pokemon). I put a lot of hours into the franchise as a whole...

...Also great to see some really cool games like Ridge Racer, Spyro and Red Baron showing up. While these had less of an impact on me, I still had a blast playing them (especially Ridge Racer 64 and Spyro: Year of the Dragon).

Yeah it was definitely a toss up between SML and Pokemon for the Gameboy. I was obsessed with Pokemon Blue, I put 24 hours into it back when I thought that was a long time to invest in a game. But I wasn't really keen on any of the other Pokemon games to be honest.

Though I also bought Pokemon Silver, I still have both mint boxed so I definitely don't regret picking it up as well ;)

The RR series is great, I pretty much have all of them up to RR6, I don't have RR64 though. RR Revolution was my favourite, even though it's probably no-where near the best, it's just the one that I have the most nostalgia for. My oddball tradition is to play it every NYE. I have no idea how that started.

[FlowerChild]

Ah! Rocket Jockey! How could I forget it?!

Look that one up if you're not familiar with it. I've been waiting for a remake for about 20 years now :)

Here's some footage:

Spoiler

Show

And yes, the Dick Dale (guy who did crazy theme song from Pulp Fiction) soundtrack was actually from the game.

[Gilberreke]

Haha, okay, that looks insane. Dick Dale + Quake on LSD meets Wacky Races? By the gods...

[Psion]

for me, its hard to pick, but id say:

minecraft - the sheer modability of this game means it never gets old.

bastion - the story telling, the aesthetics, the music, the gameplay.... WOW. hell, even the price was amazing. a real gem of a game.

kerbal space program - ive over 800 hours played on this game and im pretty sure almost all of it was better than starting manned. Thanks, FC, for sucking up my life. AGAIN.

final fantasy XI - this MMORPG is where the rest of my life got sucked up into. its still active too, and amazingly good looking considering its 15 years old. unlike ffxiv, there wasn't much hand-holding in this game. there is a lot more now out of nessessity, due to the shrinking player base (trust magic to call npcs to battle with you, tutorials to teach you some mechanics of the game since theres less people to ask now, etc) but there's still quite a few things where you have to either puzzle out what the game wants you to do or look online to find out. or ask someone. the original nation mission storyline is rather weak, but the expansions all have great story and music, and each one looks better than the last. i was blown away by Rhapsodies of Vana'diel and how they made the engine do what it did when it was limited by 15 year old software lol.

Don't Starve - i lost count of how many times i spent trying to find the perfect giant island to block off and make into a self-enclosed paradise...then died to a spider den trying to clear out said island. <,<

[kregoth]

Ah! Rocket Jockey! How could I forget it?!

Look that one up if you're not familiar with it. I've been waiting for a remake for about 20 years now :)

I loved that game, I don't think anyone has ever made another game like it. Being able to clothesline people and attach them to pillars was so much fun. It really does need a remake.

Someone did attempt to try and recreate it using the Unreal engine, http://www.moddb.com/downloads/sprocket-junkie-beta-22 sadly they never finished it. but they do have a beta version you can try. sadly it doesn't have any AI to play against, just multiply that doesn't have anyone playing and a practice mode.

[kazerima]

I'm probably a little younger than most members of the forum (only 27 here), but here's some of mine.

StarCraft:
I grew up in the 90's, and I first played Starcraft off a spawn some guy my mom was dating at his office LAN party. He burned me a copy and I played it for years until my computer messed up, my first birthday/christmas money purchase I can remember was for a copy of the battlechest with brood war and a legit copy of the game. I've got a long history, and though I've never been anywhere near good, I've always loved the three-way balance and the distinct feel of each of the races. I'd spent many a day working on designing my own units and even alternate progressions or races before the sequel came out.

Magic: The Gathering:
Who ever said we had to stick to video games? As a person who tried several times to make a trading card game, I always end up looking back to Magic and end up being amazed at how well the base mechanics function in terms of easy of learning and versatility. The soft restrictions in deckbuilding provided by colors; the simplicity of Flying and Power/Toughness; and sheer customization in deckbuilding and playstyle compared to other TCGs always leaves me in awe.

Majora's Mask:
The sandbox game before we had actual sandbox games. The non-linear progression Majora's Mask had may not have been a true sandbox game, but to a younger version of myself the game seemed like and endless wealth of possibilities at every turn. I didn't have an internet connection and never got to play any of the old school MMORPGs, but Majora's Mask had a very open feeling world where things would just kind of happen and you could explore as you moved back and forth through time.

Pokemon (Gold/Silver):
I see a lot of people liked Red/Blue on this list, and while it's true I had a great time as a child with them, I feel as though Gold and Silver are what really refined the series to its peak, becoming even better when played in reference to Red/Blue/Yellow. All the major bugs were fixed, the OP nature of Psychic was balanced out by the addition of Dark and Steel, boosting Fighting to a useful type again, Megahorn made Bug a less useless type, breeding, night/day, backwards compatibility, a stronger story, the special split, etc. Gold and Silver delivered anything a person could want in a game sequel and more, as well as adding refinements that set the tone for every single other game to follow. Yes, its scope was really large, almost impossibly large even, and yet they were able to deliver on all of it.

Soul Calibur 3:
Best game in the series out of all the ones I've played.
Every single character that appeared in the 3 previous except console exclusives? check.
Variety of challenging gameplay modes? check.
More in-depth character creator than most MMORPGs at the time even had? check.
Ability to change the skin of every single character, custom or not? check.
Entire RTS game packaged into the SAME DISK that allowed you to overcome tough enemies using the Soul Calibur combat system under interesting strategic conditions? check.
Not even counting all the lore, unlockable art/music, and challenges that kept me busy for years. Only downsides were a few bugs, PS2 exclusivity, and the lack of post-release costume packs.

Better Than Wolves:
Kind of an obvious cheap shot here, but, every time I think about another minecraft mod I think about everything I'm losing by not playing BTW, and nothing's really been worth it. Everything feels deliberate and purposeful, a lot of minor tweaks that really just deliver on the original promise of Minecraft's alpha days while later automation adds more and more to the experience. There's kind of a "goal" in the sense of building a soul-steel pyramid, but decoration is kind of an end in of itself really. Possibly one of the most influential experiences I've had in gaming, along with FC's dev diaries.

Star Trek Online:
I've hated most MMORPGs I've had the chance to play, too much reliance on theme-parking, raids, and The Grind for me to ever have fun for more than a month before I feel like I'm just running on a treadmill of content where nothing really matters. STO I didn't hate, I just had a hard time sticking with the summer events to the point where I'd get sick of playing by the time the summer ended. Ground combat was wonky and ship combat was innovative but clunky. The Free to Play model it used though has been hands down the best cash shop experience I've ever had. An internal market manages the exchange between the limited mining access Dilithium resource (everyone, free or paid, can refine up to 2500 daily of however much they mined) used for reducing crafting cooldowns and buying high tier gear from NPCs, and Zen (the cash shop currency). Players willing to put in the work could obtain anything in the cash shop by swapping Dilithium for zen, while whales needed to change their zen to Dilithium to get their high level gear and time savers. The NPC currency, energy credits, were impossible to exchange for either, keeping inflation under control. If more MMORPGs worked under that kind of pricing model, I'd hate less MMORPGs. Also worth mentioning is the love and care the developers have for the game with frequent special events, voice acting by the original actors, and strong connection to the community. For that last one in particular, when Leonard Nimoy died members of all factions came to Vulcan to stand around a fountain to pay their respects to the actor. The developers built a statue dedicated to Spock in the center of that fountain with a plaque commemorating him.

Factorio:
I finally bought it on a whim a couple a months ago and I'm already hooked. While I haven't had it very long, I already find myself wanting an even larger tech tree, because as it is I'm going to end up burning through it all almost too quickly. Using the simple parts to form larger and ever more complex machines is a type of gameplay I haven't seen much but appeals heavily to my inner engineer. It makes me think of some of the old plans FC had talked about way back when he was doing more active development on the mod, such as the Loom, that he didn't really have the drive to go through after minecraft starting going in other directions.

Stellaris:
I've only gotten into 4x games in the past 3 years or so, but I've found this is the right on for me. The mixture of exploration, building, and resource management it has just feels right to me as a player. I've got long stretches without too much else going on aside from my base management, but I always feel like there's something more for me to go do. The difference between different government types has been a very fun experience, as is the sort of planetary layout "minigame" for arranging your pops and structures for maximum benefit. There's support for a wide range of play styles and flavor tends to come first when it comes to deciding on new mechanics.

[dawnraider]

Definitely younger than almost everybody here (still in college), my favorite games of all time in no particular order would be:
Roller Coaster Tycoon - all 3 really. 1 will always have a place in my heart, but 2 and 3 added some cool systems that were a lot of fun
Skyrim - Despite all its flaws I still have almost 500 hours in it. Though the total conversion Enderal is like 150 of those, I'd recommend checking it out.
Factorio
Minecraft, though without BTW this would not be on the list.
Destiny (1 for sure, 2 to a lesser extent)
The Mass Effect original trilogy - although I still played a lot of Andromeda it was never as memorable as the original trilogy. I still play through these every once in a while.
The original bioshock - while I enjoyed the others in the series, none of them had the "Holy shit" factor that the original had.

[Katalliaan]

Pokemon Crystal: probably my favorite portable game. There were a bunch of cool features in it - the legendary dogs that travel around Johto, the specialized Pokeballs, going back to the Kanto region and challenging the leaders from gen 1, the night/day system, etc.
Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2: Chris Sawyer made some amazing games. I'm not thrilled with what Atari did with the IP afterwards, but even now those two work and look great.
OpenTTD: It's such a zen game - plan out your rail network, then sit back and watch the trains move things from A to B.
Factorio: It's pretty much what I wanted out of the tech mods in Minecraft. Given that they were kovarex's inspiration, I guess that makes sense.

[valiant11]

Here are some of my all time favorites, more or less in a chronological order:

1. Doomdark's Revenge - This game was really something. The successor to Lords of Midnight, it contained a wast land to explore and it was all packed in old Spectrum 48K memory. I never did finish this game, because of, let's quote from the Star Wars: "Look at the size of that thing!". This game exists for android devices, check for it on google play.
2. Elite - already mentioned in this thread. I played it on Spectrum, but C64 version is the best one.
3. UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka. X-COM: UFO Defense) - I managed to get to the end in this game, went to Mars and defeated the evil alien brain. Really a great game.
4. Millennium 2.2 - even NASA could learn from this game some things about exploring our solar system :). The follow-up game, Deuteros, was probably even better.
5. Railroad Tycoon - building your own railroad network, and ruining your oponents. My favorite sim-like game.
6. Warhead - really, one of the best feelings I ever had of piloting a fighter ship in space. Unforgettable battles with Berzerker, an alien machine lifeform that you had to finally lure into a black hole, because there was no other way to destroy it. Now when I look this game on youtube, I see that the time has heavily eaten through it's graphics, but the gameplay is still unbeaten, for me.
7. Settlers - when played in "missions" mode. Sandbox mode was a little dull.
8. Civilization - I don't remember which one, I think that Civ II was the best for me, with added unit strength and healing. Later versions were just building on the original idea.
9. Rome Total War - I hesitated to put "Shogun" here, although that was the first game that has started the Total War series. Rome was nevertheless a real peak in the series.
10. Diablo - only first Diablo was really good, later versions were a complete failure

and finally, Minecraft with BTW mod as the only game that I still play :). I tried a lot of mods for minecraft, Terrafirmacraft was the only one that had some potential for a great mod, but I finally gave up on that one - it was a game about smithing different anvils :) So, without BTW, as said above, minecraft would probably not be on this list for me.

[Rawny]

Wow, great stuff in that list, covers most of my favs and hands me a list of stuff to check out!

A couple to add from my "many hours played" list from back when...

Ultima 6
Mines of Titan

I only know of one other person that has played or heard of Mines of Titan, anybody played it? Loved it?
I wonder how it holds up

[destineternel]

Great topic, brought back some fond gaming memories. A few games really stand out to me that I spent hundreds of hours play.

Elite (C64)
Ultima IV (C64)
Wing Commander 3
Privateer
Neverwinter Nights
Icewind Dale

and of course Better Than Wolves.

[FlowerChild]

Ultima IV (C64)

Haha... noob. Ultima III was the true classic :)

[ion]

Starcraft Broodwar
Diablo 2 LOD first forum that i ever joined at SPF
CIV 1 2 3 4. bought 5 and i didn't enjoy it at all. 1upt sucks
Infinity engine games. Baldurs Gate 1 2 Icewind Dale 1 2, Fav game with Planescape Tourment
Gothic series games until the 3. 1 and 2 are awesome.
Dune 2000
C&C old games
Minecraft (BTW as i only play this mod)
Dwarf Fortress i love it, too bad that i only have a laptop now
last year game Divinity Original Sin 1,2, Pillars of Eternity and Tyrrany

[abculatter_2]

One of the first games I ever really got into was a little RTS game from Relic called Impossible Creatures that, unfortunately, I don't think ever got the attention I thought it deserved. It was also my first experience with online games, and my username from that game has been my global username ever since.

Zoo Tycoon and Roller Coaster Tycoon were also both really big franchises in my gaming life. I especially loved Zoo Tycoon 2, something about it just felt... right. If I ever manage to become an actual game dev some day, making a spiritual successor to the Zoo Tycoon franchise would be high on my list of games to make.

Supreme Commander was one of my favorites, the large scale and epic strategy of it really appealed to me. I especially loved playing it online, usually with the custom gamemodes/maps.

Civ IV's Fall from Heaven mod was a looooong time favorite of mine, I think I played it for literal years while growing up. Mainly because it was the best thing that could reliably run on my laptop at the time.

Also an honorable mention of Warhammer Online, which was one of two times I had ever really gotten into an MMO. (the other time being EVE Online) I played as a Bright Wizard, and just really loved making everything (including myself) explode into fire.

Also, obviously obligatory mention of MInecraft and BTW, which remain my favorite two games of all time.

[David Huffman]

Excelent Information.

[EpicAaron]

Dark Souls is still a GOAT game.

[IssaMe]

I second Dark Souls, I recently finished it and it was a blast!