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Goldeneye 007, Nintendo, 1997- I'll just lay it out, Goldeneye was the best first-person shooter ever released on a console system, period. Some may say that Duck Hunt was more popular, but those people suck at video games, and I wish I could pistol whip them. Another of the very few, good Nintendo 64 games that made it to store shelves, Goldeneye was the title that, if you went to the house of any random N64 owner, would be there. Moving slightly away from the "kids game" genre that Nintendo had put itself in during the previous years (and is still in), Goldeneye actually had the splattering of blood when someone was shot, and many people shot, there were. Just like in the Bond movies themselves, wave after wave of clumsy, uncoordinated badies flock after you as you traverse complex levels blowing stuff up. One of the few games to actually pull off following a movie script, Goldeneye allowed acne-ridden, un-datable teenagers to live the life of a "gentleman spy", without leaving the comfort of their geek caverns.
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StarCraft/Broodwar, Blizzard, 1997- Very few games have had the effect on a group of people that StarCraft:Broodwar had on the LANclub. It would even be safe to say that StarCraft was a major factor in LANclub even being created, since for the first year after it was created, Broodwar was pretty much ALL we played. The LANclub were the absolute worst kind of StarCrack addicts. Sometimes we'd sell our bodies just for a game or two. Eventually we learned that we could actually play for free, but for some reason Keith kept on selling his body, and finally was just giving it out on the street for free, a sad story to be sure. Now, I don't like to brag (**Editor's note: That's not entirely true, he loves to brag), but let's not forget who won the LANclub StarCraft Tourney of 1999, yes it was me, I mopped the floor with all of you! At the height of our gaming prowess every single person in the room new the affects, strengths and weaknesses of every unit in the game, 90% of the players still just played Protoss and flew Carriers around the map for the entire game, but that is beside the point. StarCraft would've received a place much higher on the list, in fact it would've easily been in first place, but I'm doing this chronologically (that big word means in the list is in order when the game was released/played) but it's still probably my most favorite game out of the lot. "I've got 20 Siege Tanks! Where do you want em???"
Delta Force, Novalogic, 1998- Said by most to be the first military/realism based action first person shooter, Delta Force by Novalogic was almost as a big a hit as StarCraft in the early days of LANclub. On nights where there were too many of us to play a game of SC (it has an 8 player max, and we occasionally had 25-30 people show up to play) we would often turn to Delta Force to quench the group's lust to fight and kill. Standard Death Match and Cooperative modes in Delta Force were completely worthless, what drew us all in were the Capture The Flag and even more so the King Of The Hill game types. CTF was more or less standard, the enemy has some flags, go get them and bring them back. King Of The Hill was also pretty straight forward with just a large "zone" were players scored points based on how long they could stay there. Both of which brought a certain amount of strategy and team play to the field however; while one player would run across a large open field to get to a bunker which was in "the zone" another player on this team would sit on a mountain top with a sniper rifle (Drat) and take out opposing players who tried to stop them (*look up "give them the deadness"). Once the a team member was in the zone that team would start accumulating points for every second he stayed in, so it was just as much a priority for the team to keep him alive as it was for the individual himself. To be honest I miss the days of Delta Force, it was a revolutionary game for its time, and it brought hours of blood soaked fun to those who were fortunate enough to play it. "Sniper on the hill!"
Half-Life, Valve, 1998- If you play PC games, and are not a MMORP freakazoid, then you have played Half-Life. If for some reason you haven't, then you fall under the already mentioned category, or you need go out and buy it...now. The word "revolutionary" doesn't quite describe what Half-Life was to the gaming industry, it would be better to try to compare gaming before the release of HL like unto the Dark Ages. Structured around the Quake 2 engine/design, Half-Life was the first full 3D game to bring an immersive story driven single player experience, as well as white-knuckle, lightning fast multi-player. HL pulled players into the world of Gordon Freeman, a low-level scientist assigned to secret government projects at a complex called Black Mesa. As with most things involving the government, scientists, and anything with the word "mesa" in it, something goes terribly wrong, and it's Gordon's job to fix it. Braving his way through dark and dreary warehouses, sewers, and eventually alien worlds, Gordon dealt out death to aliens of all shapes and sizes, inevitably facing off with the big "ball sack" himself, Gorath. Although the single player was both well written and definitely entertaining, what would pull players to Half-Life would be its multi-player options. Rock solid game and network code, easy "modibility", and a slew of existing game play options brought players by the thousands to Half-Life Death Match as soon as it hit store shelves. Not long after along came Team Fortress Classic which furthered HL's popularity, but Half-Life's true glory days would not start until a small group of "fanboys" would use HL's modding tools and create the next game on the list.<www
Counter-Strike, CS Mod Team, 1999- I'll start of this summary by telling a short story about one of the effects I've personally witnessed Counter-Strike having on someone:
It was the winter of 1999, we had just actually started calling ourselves "LANclub", and as was the custom those days I went over to Drat's office early in the day to "help him out" with his work. Of course as soon as I got there work stopped and Counter-Strike started, we played the entire day just the two of us, then continued to play when the rest of the guys showed up at about 7pm. One after another over the course of the night the guys started to trickle home, until it was just Drat, myself, and one other member, who for the life of me I can't remember who it was. Anyway, after we packed up our computers and were ready to leave (this would've been about 5am, after about a 20 hour CS streak) Drat opens the back door of his office and then immediately ducked back inside and peered back out cautiously. He then realized the two of us (myself and the other guy) were both staring at him with somewhat bewildered looks on our faces, to which he then explained "Crap...I was worried there were Snipers out there." Hilarity ensued.
Counter-Strike has caused Internet hysteria over the last several years. There have been countless hours of play, millions (if not billions) of online kills racked up on its servers, and it has actually claimed the lives of three real-world gamers as a direct result of its play (*pours some Sprite on the ground for his dead homies). Counter-Strike was quite literally born in some geeks basement. A group of community "fan boys" took the available Half-Life modding tools that Valve had so generously given the public and then designed a well balanced, somewhat realistic, action based mod that was actually fun to play for long periods of time. Game play was made entertaining and consistent by splitting the players into two teams and then giving one side an objective to accomplish, such as bombing a certain point on a map, or rescuing hostages, and the other side the task of stopping them (the side/objective changing depending on the map being played). At the time this new type of game play was almost unheard of, and the formula grabbed people and didn't let go. Fan sites soon changed from "Half-Life forever" to "Counter-Strike is god", hundreds of Counter-Strike clone mods have been created for every game and engine that has been released since, and many people's worlds rise and set in their favorite CS game server (I used to be one of them, and now know many personally).
Quake 3/Unreal Tournament, id Software/Epic Games, 1999- Although these are two entirely different games I decided to group them together for two reasons:
1) Because I spent almost an equal amount of time playing them both.
2) Having 15 favorites sounded a lot better than 16.
I was hooked on Quake 3 from the moment I first played the Alpha test in early 99. The weapons, the sounds, the visuals all took hold of me refused to let go, I had found a new love. At the time I was poor, dumb white kid (as opposed to now where I am a poor, dumb, married white kid) and didn't have the money to buy my own games, lucky for me Drat did however, and on the release day of Quake 3 I had it installed on my PC was fragging it up like crazy. Looking back I was into it bad. PlanetQuake was my homepage of choice for several months, I had 12 pages of player models/skins to choose from stored on my hard drive, and the Q3 symbol was emblazoned on my desktop background in one form or another for almost a year. Quake 3's gorgeous graphics, thundering sound effects, and killer control scheme brought hundreds of hours of "gib" filled fun to my life, and to this day I still regularly play it.
Unreal Tournament soon followed Quake 3 and also grabbed its share of the LANclub and my gaming attention. Although somewhat slower paced and not as "pretty" as Q3 it brought new game modes and easy game customization as a replacement. Players could run a game on one map with a certain set of options and then turn around, run the same map, tweak a few game play settings, and then have an entirely different game the next match. Combine that with original game play modes such as Assault and Domination and you had a gaming force to be reckoned with.
Grand Theft Auto 3, Rockstar Games, 2002- I can sum up this game pretty easily by saying that any form of entertainment where you can drive up to a hooker, purchase her "services" whilst driving around the city, drop her off on a street corner and the come back and run her over to get your money back without going to jail is entertainment of the best kind. I got into GTA3 after its Playstation 2 explosion when it was released for the PC. Once it was ripped from the confines of its box prison and installed on my PC I played it pretty much every waking second until I had finished all of the available missions, but the buck didn't stop there. Due to GTA3's open ended game play the replay value is huge. Have a bad day on the drive home? Load it up and commit vehicular manslaughter ‘til your heart is content. Got a speeding ticket for going 5mph over? Go wild and slay more cops than Robert De Niro in Heat. GTA3 lets gamers do it all. It's also graphically appealing, easy to control and play, and has an almost non-existent learning curve.
GTA3's "sequel" Vice City was released on the PC this year as well, and it's all of the good things GTA3 was and then some. With the addition of motor cycles, helicopters, new weapons, and a 1980's Miami Vice feel GTA: Vice City is a must own for the action gaming enthusiast. VC also goes one step further with its shot at high replay value by adding numerous game secrets that can only be opened once all of the single player missions have been completed. Ranging from a hidden Apache helicopter to stock car ring and demolition derby field, the available items and missions to unlock in VC are both high in number and fun factor.
Battlefield 1942/Desert Combat, EA Games/Desert Combat Mod Team, 2002- Setting the new standard for team based multi-player games for 2002-2003, Battlefield 1942 exploded onto the scene in September of '02 with almost no warning. Very little press was given to this game in advance of its release and all of the sudden demos started appearing on the internet for both single and multi-player, and the crowd went wild. Offering entirely unheard of game types, huge levels, different player classes dozens of drivable and flyable vehicles and a simple interface Battlefield 1942 was an instant hit. At first it was released at a reasonably low rate of $35, but as its popularity increased its price tag gradually climbed up to near $50 at most retail stores. Although it required a fairly beefy rig in order to run well, and at release its network and sound code were "spotty" at best, BF1942 still offered up rock solid original game play with new objective/team play game modes, and gamers ate it up.
A few months after BF1942 was released a stream of community made mods began to flood the internet, the most prominent being Desert Combat. Based on that small skirmish in the Iraqi desert over the last year, DC used BF1942's engine to bring modern warfare to and solid existing game premise. Replacing propeller planes with jets and attack helicopters, putting Humvees in place of Jeeps, and removing old "clunker" tanks in favor of fast, high tech weapons of war, Desert Combat soon became the true Battlefield 1942 gaming experience. DC currently takes up 90% of game time. It's fun, well balanced and has thingies that fly and shoot stuff, I likes it a whole bunch.
And there you have it, my 15 most favorite games ever made. Head over to the forums and make up your favorite games list.
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