Let's make the most original topic for discussion of all time!

[Evilpigeon]

Top 5 games please.

Yeah, I know, I know. Although I'd argue it's probably a reasonable contender for the original forum topic and that would make it the most original in a very hand wavy fashion.

In any case I'm bored, looking for new stuff that I might be interested in playing and this is a good way to find out if there's much I've been missing out on

Anyway my own list, if anyone is curious:

In no particular order:

Baldurs Gate: 2 - A common classic, great game. The original was one of the games that first got me interested in the hobby (though I was far too young and it took until I replayed it 10 years later when I was 16 to actually make any progress) and the sequel just improves upon the original in every single way. It's a real pity that Bioware games have strayed so far from this.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Guess what, I like RPGs! This might be so flawed and broken and incomplete that they're version 8.0 of the unofficial patch but underneath it all is about half of the best game I've ever played.

League of Legends - It's repetitive and has a bad community but I've been playing this pretty consistantly since I got into the closed beta about 6 months prior to its release. This game extracts the little perfectionist who lives inside me and glues him to a computer for hours on end. No other multiplayer game has hooked me like this, somehow I just can't get bored of LoL.

Crusader Kings 2 - I'd recount the stories of my various playthroughs of this game but it'd be pages and pages of evidence as to why I should never be allowed near a position of responsibility (let's execute my own children so their cousin can inherit the throne and rig every single election across multiple nations for hundreds of years!). Whoever it was at Paradox who came up with the idea of focusing a grand strategy game on the characters and their interactions was brilliant I never played the original but the sequel is just an amazing game.

and now for the 5th where it gets difficult and I have to decide between the 10 or so that I've left out so far -.-

It's probably got to be Morrowind - the game that made me go from 'kid who plays FIFA now and then' to full blown gamer. Sure it's an absolute disaster mechanically but Vvardenfell is still the best location in gaming as far as I'm concerned, I just can't think of anything that's been better done.

 

[Terminate421]

1. Battletanx Global Assault - An old game on the N64 that understood that when you have an idea, you stick to it and make the wackeist stuff you can to it. Also the only game I know that had Destructophysics BEFORE Battlefield glorified it.

2. Halo Series - All of the Halo games are not the same, but they all have a special place in my heart, that is why I put them all at #2, I can't move them anywhere else. Fun, creative, and consistently inconsistent while holding skill into account is what makes them great.

3. Pokemon Gold/Crystal/Platinum/Diamond - My favorite Pokemon generations where the 2nd and 4th and this is why they are all tied here. Great music, online mulitplayer takes proper skill and balance and all the pokemon are great (I like the 5th gen as well)

4. Fallout 3 - A game much like Battletanx but with a story that made sense. Also pretty kick ass combat system and a game that is scary when it never actually made it intentionally scary. Also the best DLC support I've ever seen from a game.

5. Metroid Prime 1 and 2 - Each year I play one of these as a run to remind myself why games are awesome, with graphics that have aged pretty damned well:

Spoiler

And puzzles and combat that is satisfying and some creative monsters and animations and weapon variety, I love these games.

 

[Lugbzurg]

You expect me to cram all of that into a simple five!? Uhh... Can't do that. I'm way too diverse in my games to be able to cram them in like that. There's just no point in comparing Banjo-Kazooie to Half-Life like that, weather or not you're talkin' games that have dashes in their names.

I can, however, give you my top 10 list of Nintendo 64 games (one per franchise)!

#10. Super Smash Bros.
#9. Bomberman 64
#8. Mario Kart 64
#7. 007: The World is Not Enough
#6. Diddy Kong Racing
#5. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2
#4. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
#3. Donkey Kong 64
#2. Conker's Bad Fur Day
#1. Banjo-Kazooie

 

[Phlakes]

I could never put them in order, but Ocarina of Time (yay originality points), Mass Effect 3 (yes, that's a 3) if you take it in context of the entire series, Paper Mario TTYD because it's just a perfect RPG, Banjo Kazooie/Tooie because they're probably the best 3D platformers ever made, and Super Metroid for the sake of diversity.

-'Let's make the most original topic for discussion of all time!'-

What do I have in my pocket?

A phone, or you're just happy to see me.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Red Dead Redemption, Full Throttle, Fallout 3, Banjo Kazooie, and Super Mario Sunshine. I didn't think too hard about it. Red Dead was the first game to give me genuine chills and forced me to restructure my life around playing it. Full Throttle is a game I played through multiple times just to experience the plot over and over again. Fallout 3 made me love the open world RPG and showed me a little of what game addiction is like. Banjo Kazooie is the most nostalgic game for me of the N64 era and makes me feel warm and safe even now. And I loved almost everything about Mario Sunshine. It's the imperfect Mario game that was hard as hell and forced you to get good at it.

 

[Truniron]

#5: Pokemon Crystal. While the first three games where awesome, the second generation blew my f***ing balls off. It was twice as big as the previous game and seeing a future version of the previous game was both fun and exciting.

Spoiler

#4: Shadow of the Colossus. This game truly lived up to the now overused word epic. An epic adventure, music from the gods themselves and one of the saddest endings in any video games.

Spoiler

#3: Lufia II Rise of the Sinnistrals. While the first one was really good, the second game still stands as one of the best, underrated SNES games ever. Great graphic, good music, lovable characters and controllers made in heaven.

Spoiler

#2: Valkyrie Profile Lenneth. Since I discovered the Internet back in 1999, I have never seen this game on any top ten favorite games. That is to me, a mystery, because this game kicks ass! Awesome on every points and a bonus for being a underrated classic.

Spoiler

#1: Final Fantasy IX. Hands down, the best game in the Final Fantasy franchise (7/VII can go cry alone in a corner). Everything about this game amazed me the first time I played it, and with excellent music, well developed characters and a 10/10 game play, you have a recipe for gold in you collection.

Spoiler

 

[The Madman]

Not going to list my 'top 5' because I've done so plenty before so if anyone is honestly curious they can look that up, but for the sake of discussion I will comment on...

Crusader Kings 2 - I'd recount the stories of my various playthroughs of this game but it'd be pages and pages of evidence as to why I should never be allowed near a position of responsibility (let's execute my own children so their cousin can inherit the throne and rig every single election across multiple nations for hundreds of years!). Whoever it was at Paradox who came up with the idea of focusing a grand strategy game on the characters and their interactions was brilliant I never played the original but the sequel is just an amazing game.

YES! I'm not sure I'd put it near my all time favourites quite yet but I recently got into Crusader Kings 2 and I've got to agree, it's one of the best strategy games in years. Easily my favourite game so far this year as the least! These sorts of character driven strategy games need to become more of a 'thing' so to speak. We need more of them!

I mean games like the Civilization series sort of dip their toes into the character aspect, with leaders each having their own personality of sorts, but it's not really a core aspect of the game. With Crusader Kings 2 the characters, both those you play and those you don't, are the game. It's like the Sims for strategy fans, and it's glorious. How the hell did I ever miss the first game if it was even remotely like this? Damn, I feel like I've been missing out. And I dare call myself a fan of strategy games?

Anyway I like to toss this recommendation out when I can because the game really needs more love, but if you liked Crusader Kings 2 look into a game called 'Solium Infernum' sometime. It's a small indie strategy title with a similar premise of being a character driven experience, although with a completely different premise. Between it and CK2 I've just been in strategy heaven as of late, staying up late at night plotting and getting distracted at work as I scheme plans for when I get home.

Good times, good times indeed.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

#1 Animal Crossing Always has been, always will be.
#2 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion It's just so beautiful, I only found out about it two years ago...I spent so much time playing it.
#3 Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution Despite horrible online support I still find this game to be extremely fun.
#4 Total War: Napoleon There is nothing more pleasing than recreating Blucher's and Wellesley's victory at Waterloo, or creating a Prussian Europe.
#5 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess This was the second best Gamecube game I have ever played as well as the greatest Zelda game there is!

 

[cryogeist]

This List changes constantly for me
but anyway
in no order
Gratuitous Space/Tank Battles
Toy Soldiers/Toy Soldiers Cold War
Final Fantasy Tactics/Tactics Advance/Advance 2
Call Of Duty (all of them)
Wargame European Escalation

 

[Arakasi]

Let's do it countdooooooown style.

5. Left 4 Dead/TF2 - Both great online shooters. In totally different ways, especially loved the commentary avaliable in L4D
4. Minecraft - Great original game that allows me to build like I imagined when I was a child. + Zombies. Everything can be made better with zombies.
3. Bioshock - Beautifully designed game, amazing story/background, haunting visuals, scary/haunting baddies.
4. Perfect Dark/Banjo Kazooie - Both amazing games made by Rare. Perfect Dark does right what almost all modern shooters do wrong, and Banjo Kazooie, well, its Banjo Kazooie
1. Fallout: New Vegas - What brought this above Fallout 3 for me were the DLCs. Specifically Old World Blues and Lonesome Road. Both amazingly designed, one makes you laugh, the other makes you think, its like it was designed by Professor Frink. Damn it I fell into rhyme. But yeah, those two DLCs were brilliant.

Damn it, I forgot Age of Mythology. Oh well. It's in there somewhere.

 

[Slowpool]

5. Batman: Arkham City
4. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (SWTOR would be here, if it didn't pad it's length and charge monthly)
3. Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 WITH MODULES
2. Skyrim
1. BG2: SoA and VTM: Bloodlines. I really can't decide which I like more.

 

[ThePS1Fan]

5. Red Dead Redemption ~ I liked GTA IV's story, and they share some major themes, but I feel this one did it way better. Also has one of the best endings to a game I can think of.

4. Batman: Arkham City ~ Not much to say, it was AA but bigger. The story was a little lacking compared to AA due to this but it still flowed really well. Also had an amazing ending.

3. Portal 2 ~ My GotY for 2011. Although I didn't quite enjoy it as much as the first it comes really close. Both are amazing and I loved every second of both, even the ones of frustration while I stood in the middle of a room wondering what the hell I was supposed to do.

2. Portal ~ On reason I like Portal more that it's sequel is it's story. It isn't as straight in your face as Portal 2, but leaves some very important information in hidden text. Portal 2's hidden text was still good but didn't do the same job Portal's did.

1. Spyro: Year of the Dragon. ~ This one mostly comes from nostalgia, but hell, I love this game more than anything. I can't say anything about it other than, this is my childhood I will forever love it.

 

[shrekfan246]

I wonder if I still have my list from the last one of these threads... well, the most recent thing I can find is this:

Spoiler

Hm. I'll see what I can come up with.

1. Metal Gear Solid 4 - Any of the series would suffice, really. Never has a game series with four installments already released that flew completely under my radar been able to make me want to experience each individual title more and more with each passing day until I finally obtained them.

2. Mass Effect 2 - Essentially "Star Wars without Lightsabers", Mass Effect endeared me with the characterization of fellow companions and the many varied branches of way you could play the game (despite adhering to "Good", "Neutral", and "Baby-Eating" Shepards), along with far improved game-play as compared to the first title.

3. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - As someone who has been unable to play Morrowind or Oblivion for longer than half an hour without being bored out of my skull, I was rather shocked to find Skyrim to be incredibly immersive, with a solid world, interesting quests, great aesthetics, and competent combat (though magic not scaling with level is very annoying. . .). After two weeks, I've put 66 hours into the game with no signs of the ending actually being right around the corner, which I think qualifies it to be on a list such as this.

4. Sonic Generations - A long-time Sonic fan, Generations feels like it takes the best out of Sonic 2&3, Sonic Unleashed/Colors, and then mixes it up with levels out of the last twenty years of Sonic games (for better or for worse, '06). It has made me more excited than any other game in recent times, though I can't honestly say it's objectively better than the other titles.

5. Halo - In an age of first-person shooters that tend to focus on "modern" sensibilities and multi-player game-play, Halo is a brilliantly vivid game about a genetically engineered guy in a power suit who essentially one-man-army's his way through two entire alien fleets. The series has always been marked by a rather significant single-player portion, co-op campaigns, competitive multi-player, fun and unique weapons, human and alien vehicles, and the good old fashioned feeling of being a god in human form while still providing a significant challenge. As one of the reasons that I purchased an Xbox 360, I really would like to put the series as a whole, though the first title is as good as any.

If I could, I would include:
6. Batman: Arkham Asylum/City
7. Banjo-Kazooie/Banjo-Tooie
8. Kingdom Hearts
9. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
10. Portal/Portal 2
11. Final Fantasy VII
12. Half-Life 2
13. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
14. Mario Kart: Double Dash
15. Super Smash Bros. Melee/Brawl

I'm going to tweak it a little bit though.

#1. Still Metal Gear Solid, taken as the entire series from Solid to Peace Walker.

#2. Kingdom Hearts. Though the recent strategy for releasing new Kingdom Hearts games has really put me off, I haven't played a game in the series that I haven't liked and replayed multiple times.

#3. Mass Effect. Shepard gets hit with the Cutscene-Stupidity stick more and more often as the series goes on, but it's still overall one of the most expansive and intricate series' I've ever played.

#4. Still going to put Sonic Generations up on this list, too. Though the recently released Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II is a huge step toward the right direction even when compared to Episode I, it still doesn't really recapture all of the magic of the classic games. Generations still feels like the most solid Sonic title to be released since his original move to 3D, and not only because it brought back the old-school side-scrolling action. (I'm led to believe it was plagued by input lag on the console versions though, which was absent from the PC version that I love so much.)

#5. Halo. I'm probably going to be a nice little consumer and buy Halo 4 when it's released, and all I can hope is that 343 Studios still gives Master Chief a decent slice of single-player pie.

Honorable mentions:
#6. Batman: Arkham Asylum/City
#7. Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie
#8. Pokemon
#9. Portal 1 and 2
#10. The Witcher 2

 

[General Twinkletoes]

1 Team fortress 2. Best fps for casual play, still works great in competitive play, nine classes that all have a stupid amount of depth but you can still pick up easily (Except for spy) and after several years, seeing how practice has finally gotten me to be quite good.

2Portal series.

No I'm not choosing, no I'm not deciding which one. Go away.

3 LoZ: Wind waker. Interchangable with the portal series, I liked the sailing and pretty much everything else about it (except for the triforce quest ).

4 Super smash bros melee/brawl. I love these games, been playing them for so long. I think melee is better on it's own, but I have a hack for brawl called brawl-, that amps everything up to eleven and makes it balanced (in theory, anyway) by breaking everyone . A ton of fun.

5 Only just, but saints row 2. Love this game to death, even though I haven't played a lot of it compared to the other series. Blends silliness and seriousness perfectly

Other ones that could also be there, depending on which order I though of them:

Magicka
terraria
one of the pokemon (No idea)
super mario sunshine.

 

[Risingblade]

Why not six? It's more than five and would make a funny typo

 

[Instant K4rma]

5. Final Fantasy VII. Yes, I'm aware of how cliche this is, but I loved that game, dammit! Was one of my first big experiences in deep storytelling in a videogame.

4. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Love Morrowind, love Daggerfall, love Oblivion, but most of all, I love Skyrim. Not even my nostalgia goggles could pull it's predecessors ahead of it on this list. I just adore that game.

3. Mount & Blade: Warband. This game knows that outstanding singe player experiences can be built around freedom and choice, plus I'm a big sucker for large scale battles.

2. Red Dead Redemption. Say what you will about gameplay and mechanics (I thought they were stellar, personally), I was astounded at how much I ended up caring for the characters in this game, especially John. Beautifully written, and one of the best (if not most depressing) endings in a game that I've seen in recent history. Very impressed.

1. Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Call me cliche or old-fashioned, but I seriously just love OoT. Clever dungeons, compelling gameplay, great characters... I never thought I'd wind up feeling such a connection to a silent protagonist. Granted, this placement may very well be clouded by nostalgia goggles, but that's alright with me. I'm sure it doesn't hold up as well today, but I'm so lost in nostalgia that I don't much mind.