The original Spyro was my absolute favorite as a kid, also enjoyed crash bandicoot, ratchet and clank, and the jak and daxter series. The don’t make adventure games like they used to imo so now I do a lot of strategy and sim games as I’m obviously old now
Super Mario Bros 3 is probably the first game that comes to mind as I was finally old enough to really get excited for specific games, and that one was hugely anticipated at the time. The whole game blew my 7 year old mind (think thats the math at least). Up until that point it was mostly grabbing games based on their box art at the rental place, or based on what looked cool in those displays in Toys R Us. And you played those whether they were good or not. That wasn’t the case with SMB3 though.
Super Mario World is probably the next example, for similar reason as above but even bigger and better. Then into the Donkey Kong Country games. Final Fantasy VI was another game that blew me away when I first saw it. That intro was crazy when you still considered the SNES a new platform. Pokemon Blue for the Pocket I got specifically to play it.
Played lots of the original Diablo, though I was terrible at it back then. Actually didn’t like Diablo 2 that much when it was first released, but got into it again years later. Baldur’s Gate 2 was fun for a while, but never beat it (and didn’t play the first until much later). Lords of Magic was a game I played the crap out of but was terrible at the game as well.
If we are just talking about time played then games like Baseball Stars, Excitebike, Track and Field with the Power Pad, etc. You just played the shit out of every game you owned back then. Because you only got them once or twice a year.
EA Sports WRC: I’d have though that EA would take the easy way, get DR2 gameplay which was ok, upgrade graphics to be next gen, rebrand to the official license and sell for 70$.
They have instead reworked the physics to the point they are probably the best ever a in non - hardcore - sim(RBR) rally game, tarmac is finally fun. They’ve added 12 rallies which is twice as many as DR2 had at launch and mostly based on real life stages, not fantasy, not to mention they are available in different seasons (Monte Carlo in winter with ice feels completely different to summer). There are plenty of cars which look and sound great. They have sacrificed graphics on the other hand, the game looks no better than last gen DR2 and there were stutters. All of that for 50$.
It’s very weird for EA but I’ll take it. They’ve been, surprisingly, well behaved this year although I don’t play their sports games so maybe they doubled down there to compensate 😂
Other than that I’ve finished my “normal”, good, 3 druid BG3 playthrough, started an evil, dark urge Bard one.
Transport Tycoon - I recently found a notebook of mine in which I wrote detailed lists of routes and vehicles. This is maybe the first game I fully embraced and played for hours.
Dune 2 - The first RTS game I played although I had no idea what it was all about (hadn’t seen the movie yet read the book at that time).
Red Alert - The OST is still great, the FMV hasn’t aged well, but gameplay is still great. The remaster is very good (alternatively use OpenRA).
Anno 1602 (1602 A.D.) - I played the demo for hours carefully avoiding upgrading my citizens as this would end the demo. Maybe the first game I bought myself and I still have the box.
Dungeon Keeper 2 - My first hype game. I upgraded my system for this (it was worth it).
Gothic 2 - Maybe the first Action RPG I played and it still holds up to current titles. In some aspects it even is better than Witcher 3 which released years later.
World of Warcraft - I played the open beta and was immediately hooked. I played until the second expansion came out.
Banished - Still my goto game for cold winter nights. It is incredible difficult and hard to find the perfect balance. You have to force yourself to play slowly which is wonderful.
Oxygen not included - I can play this for hours and hours. It has the same need for balance as Banished but a unique art style and endless mods on the workshop.
Transport Tycoon Deluxe was amazing, as a kid it took me so long to understand how the game worked (being from a non-English speaking country it was mostly trial and error) but once i understood i spent hours on it every day. I still remember the excitement of completing my first campaign, and getting the pop-up message in 2050 that I won the game, such a wonderful feeling.
There is an open source remake of it called OpenTTD available on steam, which is the same game with quality of life improvements, better graphics (as far as pixel style games go), and lots of customizability options that I still play to this day, it still is one of my favourite games of all time
I mean I personally prefer not too difficult of a challenge, as I don’t have all that much time to play games. But another really cool thing I like about OpenTTD is the fact that you can choose what kind of AI opponents to play against, from a big pool of community created AI’s, which can allow for really difficult challenges sometimes. Like if the AI builds fast, with all the different vehicles available and you don’t allow yourself to buy them out, it can get really difficult, and you can make the game as fun as you want it to be
Red Alert 2 & Yuri’s Revenge are my favorite games of all time. I sunk so much time as a kid beating the campaign and then making custom maps and levels for fun. The installer and the cut scenes were so memorable. It also had an amazing sound track. It was also one of the few RTS I tried at the time where the game didn’t feel like it took forever. For contrast I remember playing some C&C and also Dune 2000 as a kid and I remember each campaign easily taking over an hour to complete. I also remember it got kind of boring fast.
Aside from those some other honorable mentions:
SimCity 3000: My first sim city game. It was fantastic with an amazing sound track.
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