Any platform(s).
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3
Katamari Damacy
Sims 2
Stardew Valley
Skyrim
The 101 Dalmatians Puzzle Game for Gameboy Color.
These are the games I have the fondest memories of 💜
Metal Gear Solid 1
Cyberpunk 2077
Civilization V
Gods Will Be Watching
Portal
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Dead Cells
Sniper Elite 3
Dirt Rally
Ghost of Tsushima
I was so close to putting Dead Cells on my list, but I opted for Hades instead. Dead Cells is so damned good, though.
Gnome Mahjongg
Ltris
Bejeweled
Gnome Tetravex
Frozen Bubble
Xye
Chrono Trigger
Earthbound
Xenogears
Nier: Automata
Vagrant Story
Super Mario World
Hades
Elden Ring
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Final Fantasy XIV
Kind of in order, kinda not. They all deserve 1st place, really, and I’m sure there are many others that could be up there with them that didn’t spring to mind as fast.
Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan & Dylan.
I’m not very nostalgic, so not much of old games on this list (in no particular order):
Bloodborne Red Dead Redemption 2 Dark Souls The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom Hades Monster Hunter World: Iceborne Shadow of the Colossus Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Super Mario Galaxy 2 Elden Ring No Order:
Rimworld
Project Zomboid
Deep Rock Galactic
Vintage Story
Fallout New Vegas (+F2)
Civilization 5
Kerbal Space Program
Mass Effect Series
Minecraft
Gothic
Seeing civ V there brought back some real good memories for me, overall you have some real solid choices in no opinion
Rock and Stone!
- earthbound
- final fantasy 6
- chrono trigger
- super mario world
- mario 64
- halo 2
- grand theft auto 3
- half life 2
- bioshock
- tears of the kingdom
I remember playing Mario 64 at my grandparent’s house when it first came out. My grandpa, who was born in the 1920s, was absolutely stunned. He said, “this is a video game?!” and then just sat and watched me play.
Haha that’s awesome. I remember playing a racing game on the Sega Saturn as a kid and thinking it was so insanely realistic and there was no way that graphics could get any better.
Haha I remember thinking the same thing playing Virtua Fighter on the Sega Saturn back in the day.
- Subnautica (original and Sub Zero, plus a nod to Planet Crafter which captures some of that same vibe)
- Metroid Prime (and all the other Metroids)
- StarCraft (1 and 2, though fuck Blizzard today)
- Diablo (2 and 3, though to a lesser extent for 3, and still fuck Blizzard)
- WoW (I’m done with it now but there was a reason I was addicted for those years, but fuck Blizzard)
- Oblivion (and Skyrim)
- Factorio (and Dyson Sphere Project)
- Beat Saber (and a nod to the rhythm games that predated it, like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Frequency I believe it was called)
- Paradox games (HOI4, CK3, Europa (uh current?), Stellaris)
- Hades
Many others could have been listed here instead. Oxygen not included, smash Bros, DBZ kakarot, xenosaga 2, transport fever, city skylines, risk of Rain 2, King’s quest series, civ, Halo, Mario games, Zelda games, Mario Kart, Lego games, Minecraft… And I’m sure I’m missing many more that I have tried and others that I haven’t.
Oblivion I find somewhat questionable due to just how awful that leveling system was. Holy fuck did mods ever save that fucking game.
Oblivion holds a special place in my heart as the first elder scrolls game I played and as one of the few games that rewarded players that jumped everywhere they went. My mind was kinda blown the first time I saw athleticism or acrobatics level up just from jumping from one place to another.
And I have fond memories of getting into the mage’s guild and making a custom spell that increased acrobatics to a crazy level and then jumping around the roofs of that section of the town. That was the last time I played the game, actually. It came out early in my WoW addiction and interrupted the addiction for a month or so, but then I got pulled back into WoW and ended up going pretty hardcore with the character I rolled on my return and didn’t have time for… well, anything else lol.
Outer Wilds
and
Inscryption
dragon age origins
mass effect 2 red dead 2 baldurs gate 3 witcher 3 cyberpunk 2077 tetris horizon zero dawn dragon age inquisition resident evil 4Depends how you define ‘top’, but lets go with most (estimated) hours played:
Minecraft. It wont track my hours, but if it did in the back end and told me I had played 10,000 hours of minecraft, I’d believe it. Yes I’m aware that’s more than a year of playtime, I mean what I said. Almost been playing for half my life, I doubt I will ever truly stop.
Runescape, both RS3 and OSRS. They started tracking hours played well after I started playing, but given my playtime for both of these is listed in days, it probably deserves being here. You never quit Runescape, you merely take extended breaks.
League of Legends. This probably wouldn’t show up if it were a list of favourite games, i don’t know why I still play it. Around 2,000 hours at last check. Help me.
Forza Horizon 5. 600 hours. I did a lot of races. 400 hours in the previous title. Anyone still playing 5 know if the game works properly now? I remember the online being a disaster and the majority of every leaderboard being cheated times.
Warframe. This is going out of order due to the extremely short time I got those hours. At 500 hours, the first 200 hours were in 2 weeks. More games need bullet jump.
Counterstrike: Global Offensive. Yeah that’s about 2k hours again. This game has ruined most other FPS games for me because bullet travel time is a bitch and I never learned it.
Stardew Valley. I think all top 10 lists deserve this game, 400 hours. Level 10 fishing in the first spring, never sided with Joja.
Skyrim. 360 hours, although at least 20 of those hours were mid-crash. Unplayable without mods.
Trackmania 2020. Excellent game, ton of fun. Wish it wasn’t behind the Ubisoft launcher, this game is the only reason I have it. 300 hours. Obviously learned about the game from Wirtual.
Stellaris brings out 10th, 170 hours. I have no idea how to play the game and I think I need about 500 more hours to maybe get the basics down. And then I’ll have to learn all the DLC!
This list did not end up being some of the games I expected it to be. I thought Skyrim would be lower, and I thought Beat Saber would’ve made an appearance, but only 145 hours of that. This list also skipped idle games because that’s just cheating. Apparently I only have 10 games on Steam over 100 hours, that’s clearly not enough gaming and I need to fix that. Did I write too much? Probably. But I spent a couple minutes looking up the numbers for some of these so I’m not just gonna not post it at this point.
I debated on adding League of Legends to my list. It really is a good game, but it doesn’t make you feel good playing it. So I decided to leave it off.
The OP said top ten best. I don’t think “top” is the subjective part.
Well, OP’s question could be read as “choose your top games out of a list of all time best video games” and this is probably what the person you’ve replied to read.
Maybe my brain skips words when I read things.
This isn’t a maybe.
:)
In no order…
- Grim Fandango
- Psychonauts (I and II combined)
- Fallout New Vegas
- Morrowind
- Portal (I and II combined)
- Thief (1-3 combined)
- Civilization II
- Space Invaders
- Falcon series (F3 and 4.0)
- The Pandora Directive
And some bonus games to add to the mix, because there are too many amazing games in the world.
- The Longest Journey/Dreamfall
- Red Dead Redemption II
- Mass Effect
EDIT Also
- Pac Man
- Quake II
Both grim Fandango and psychonauts 1 and 2 are absolute gems
Hat tip to you for including some classic games. Most of the respondants are making me feel positively antediluvian :)
Ah, yes. From before the flood of modern content
Morrowind was such an amazing experience, it’s one of the games I wish I could experience for the first time again.
Morrowind was bundled with a video card I got, and thought I’d at least try it. I had no idea what it was or how it worked, and I fell headfirst into it. WEEKS thrown at it, and I never got bored.
After that, Oblivion was a letdown for me and I didn’t get very far into it. Skyrim was great fun, but the lore was clearly secondary. (I eventually went back to Oblivion and found it a better story than Skyrim, but Morrowind is still the best.)
You can play TES3MP and hold someone else’s hand through it for the first time.
Portal! Wish I’d remembered that one for my list. Such an inventive game.
Hmm, tough choices. In no particular order.
The Legend of Zelda - A Link To The Past This game was great when it was released and it’s great now, and thanks to the randomiser community it’s now infinitely replayable as well.
Super Metroid A series that literally helped define a genre, Super Metroid was everything that I suspect they wanted Metroid and Return of Samus to be but the hardware couldn’t keep up. The world is built for speed running as well with so many shortcuts that experienced players can utilise, and again, with the randomiser community making it infinitely replayable (not only on its own, but with a crossover with ALTTP!), this game easily makes it onto my list.
Final Fantasy VII My original introduction to JRPGs and a game whose story and mechanics still hold up today even if the graphics don’t as much. Obviously a lot of people feel the same way thanks to the Remakes, which while slightly out there have had so much nostalgia to play through them.
Final Fantasy XI The original Final Fantasy MMORPG and my introduction to MMORPGs generally, I put about 10 years into this game and still to this today occasionally reinstall it and see where I was last up to.
Final Fantasy XIV I tried several times to start FFXIV, but never got past the first few dungeons until COVID lockdowns hit, and since then am fully on board. The story, while a slow burn, is so good, and being a live service game means there’s always new content coming or changes to learn. But really, the story in FFXIV is easily good enough to qualify as a mainline FF title, and any FF players who haven’t tried it yet, should.
Doki Doki Literature Club You have to play this blind. Don’t watch a let’s play, and avoid any spoilers if you can. It’s worth it. But when it’s all done, if you’re playing on PC, people have written entirely new mods and story for it, and the good ones really know how to make you connect with the characters.
Persona 5 Royal I discovered the Persona series with Golden, and was super excited to play Persona 5 when it released, but Royal is the definitive version that you’ll want to play. The story is great, the gameplay is lots of fun, and the combination of JRPG and slice of life makes you feel a lot more connected to the loveable cast.
Factorio Just perfectly tickles that itch for resource management. The factory must grow.
Metal Gear Solid 2 A main memory I have of this game is the first time playing it where I bought out a whole box of those chocolates they sell for fundraising - was supposed to sell them to other people but they were great for late night snacking while I played. The stealth, the tension, the weird everything towards the end, it was a trip from start to finish.
Duke Nukem 3D Duke wasn’t my first foray into FPS games (Wolfenstein 3D manages that title). But it holds a special place in my heart as it was the first game I ever played online multiplayer on. But I did it before the internet, so literally had a modem to modem connection running over an IPX network. Realistically, there’s been plenty of better FPS games since, both modern and classic, but the irreverent humour, plus the fact I was a teen who probably wasn’t supposed to be playing a game with strippers and highly pixilated tits in it, just edges it into my top 10.
I love how you can tell how old someone is by their favorite final fantasy games :)
You’re right, you really can. That being said if it’s purely personal favourites I’d put FF6 into that list as well. I would love if they gave that the Remake treatment.
Same! FF6 is so damn good
If you like DDLC, you should try Song of Saya. Just a warning, it can get quite graphic, but the storytelling is amazing.
Also Chrono Trigger if you’re a Final Fantasy fan.
Chrono Trigger have played and loved as well, but it’s not one I’ve gone back to and replayed, which was one of my key criteria in this list, longevity (for me - I realise Chrono Trigger does have it between the multiple endings and New Game+ mode).
I have a very distinct memory of first playing it via emulator on ZSNES, and running into a bug in a section in the future that required you to hold L and R and activate some controls to open a door. For whatever reason the emulator wasn’t handling that properly and I got stuck. Eventually went back to it on Snes9x and was able to progress, but that stuck out.
Haven’t heard of Song of Saya though, thanks for the recommendation!
I don’t think an emulator bug (especially from a 90s emulator) should factor into how good a game is.
I’d recommend giving it another shot. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, and the only game I find myself replaying every year.
Oh, sorry, please don’t read it that way! It’s a game I very much enjoyed when I played it, and I do still today watch speed runners race it occasionally. The bug didn’t impact my enjoyment of it in the longer term, it’s just a fun fact I remember about it from when I did play it all those years ago that I thought I’d share.
Ah. Makes sense. The early days of emulators were something I really enjoyed. One of the reasons I even got into computers was ZSNES (although glitching Pokemon 1st gen was another)
I play them still.
- Total annihilation.
- Zero-k
- World of Warcraft, as long as I can avoid cataclysm
I don’t play them but would easily
- The settlers III + Amazons
- Torchlight
- Diablo II as it was in like 05
- Quake II + lithium (slow hooks; hi Nelson crew)
- Dune 2
- WCII as in 98
Huh. That’s it. StarCraft is out as I played for a day before cavedog ruined it for me forever, but it get it if you still love it.
I LOVED TA back in the day. I recently bought it again off Steam.
