P&B Ranks: The Top 42 Video Games of All-Time

[madwullie]

8 hours ago, BFTD said:

Just installed Theme Hospital again on my laptop. One day I will finish that bloody game before getting bored and quitting. Managed to skip ahead a few levels, so this may be the time.

Really, Quake 2? It was OK and all, but id had started the era of making games as tech demos for their new engines, and the gameplay was fairly meh. Most of the games made on that engine were probably better than Quake 2 TBH.

Speaking of Quake 2 engine games, I just noticed that Kingpin: Life of Crime is getting an imminent remaster. The teaser mentions the game being "rebalanced", which piques my interest as the horrific number of dead-eye hit-scanning enemies in that game turned it into a quicksave chore by the end.

 

Kingpin was deep in my "games out the barras" days and annoyingly whichever mob claimed to have cracked it were completely BS-ing. It completely refused to load any textures at all, which made it 100% unplayable. I'm sure it opened with me as a black man shaped blob looking at a collection of black blobs in a black room holding a crowbar shaped black blob. I remember taking it back 3 or 4 times (those guys in the barras were actually pretty sound when it came to returns considering) and the same problem just kept occurring. 

I also remember my 13 year old self considering how fucking minted those guys must be, just buying shit loads of blank discs and copying infinite games onto them. Pretty sure "being a c**t selling pirates in the barras" was my career aspiration for a good couple of years. Proper good times. 

Edited March 15, 2021 by madwullie

[TheScarf]

I once did a 90 minute game on the hardest difficulty in PES 4 and won about 12-5.  It wasn't too bad. It actually flew past.

I used to do 8 minutes halves.

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

Kingpin was deep in my "games out the barras" days and annoyingly whichever mob claimed to have cracked it were completely BS-ing. It completely refused to load any textures at all, which made it 100% unplayable. I'm sure it opened with me as a black man shaped blob looking at a collection of black blobs in a black room holding a crowbar shaped black blob. I remember taking it back 3 or 4 times (those guys in the barras were actually pretty sound when it came to returns considering) and the same problem just kept occurring. 

I also remember my 13 year old self considering how fucking minted those guys must be, just buying shit loads of blank discs and copying infinite games onto them. Pretty sure "being a c**t selling pirates in the barras" was my career aspiration for a good couple of years. Proper good times. 

Aye, my first copy of Kingpin had fucked up the transparent textures at some point, so you'd have a bunch of mooks shooting you from behind a chainlink fence, only the bits you were supposed to be able to see through were just black, so it was a case of firing into the dark and hoping for the best. You can't complain too much when you've not paid for it!

Nothing like the feeling when you were flipping through the folders of printed lists of pirate software at the Barras, only for the boys to all slip out without you noticing, and to find yourself alone and face to face with a polis  

[madwullie]

45 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Aye, my first copy of Kingpin had fucked up the transparent textures at some point, so you'd have a bunch of mooks shooting you from behind a chainlink fence, only the bits you were supposed to be able to see through were just black, so it was a case of firing into the dark and hoping for the best. You can't complain too much when you've not paid for it!

Nothing like the feeling when you were flipping through the folders of printed lists of pirate software at the Barras, only for the boys to all slip out without you noticing, and to find yourself alone and face to face with a polis  

Ha never had the joy of meeting a polis in there, but I fucking lived for those trips into the barras. Even during the old amiga and Atari ST days were brilliant. Speedball 2  

[Fuctifano]

Yes, salad days of 13 year old me at the Barras with my maw in tow being completely perplexed as I went round all the Amiga game stalls then getting home and firing up this bad boy.

Couldn't argue for games at £1 per disk even if they didn't always work.

Separate discussion, games have actually held their value well. To use Cannon Fodder as an example that was £30 when it came out which the BoE inflation calulator tells me is £62 in today's money, and I'm sure PS1 games were £40-45 in 1998 which is about £82.

I'm sure there were far more expensive games in the early 90s as well, on the Mega Drive anyway.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Fuctifano

[Gaz]

2 hours ago, Fuctifano said:

Yes, salad days of 13 year old me at the Barras with my maw in tow being completely perplexed as I went round all the Amiga game stalls then getting home and firing up this bad boy.

Couldn't argue for games at £1 per disk even if they didn't always work.

Separate discussion, games have actually held their value well. To use Cannon Fodder as an example that was £30 when it came out which the BoE inflation calulator tells me is £62 in today's money, and I'm sure PS1 games were £40-45 in 1998 which is about £82.

I'm sure there were far more expensive games in the early 90s as well, on the Mega Drive anyway.

Mega Drive games were about £40-£45 when they first came out. SNES were more expensive, usually about £50.

There were special cases. Virtua Racing for the Mega Drive was £70. Premium AAA+ SNES games were often upwards of £60.

[djchapsticks]

On 11/03/2021 at 18:33, madwullie said:

For some reason I have the binding of isaac in my steam games list, but don't think I've ever played it. Might have a look over the next couple of weeks. 

 

On 11/03/2021 at 18:42, BFTD said:

I seem to remember it being part of several indie game bundles years ago. That's where I got my copy of the original version.

That was my pick. I've sunk more hours into it than I care to admit and will be starting again when the final update, Repentance comes out.

Its a game that ticks all the boxes for me, there is depth and strategy in the gameplay but at the same time you can pick it up and play it with a spare half hour. Every run through brings more and more new areas, enemies, weapons secrets and objectives. You get impossible runs (and you get piss easy runs) but you never feel it's being unfair. I was still learning it months and months later.

An amazing, amazing game.

[Homer Thompson]

Anyway, was thinking of games I missed (some ludicrous omissions!) and could have had in my list came up with:
Little Big Adventure 2
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Quake 2
Toejam and Earl
GTA San Andreas
Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Cool Boarders 2
Smackdown 2
XIII
Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 2
Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2
Day of the Tentacle 
Theme Hospital
Mario Kart 64
Age of Empires 2

Tony hawk's! Omg however could I have forgotten that

[BFTD]

3 hours ago, Fuctifano said:

Yes, salad days of 13 year old me at the Barras with my maw in tow being completely perplexed as I went round all the Amiga game stalls then getting home and firing up this bad boy.

Couldn't argue for games at £1 per disk even if they didn't always work.

The trick (if you didn't have access to the internet/BBS, which was ludicrously expensive back then) was to get yourself into a postal ring. I was sending out hundreds of floppy disks per week when I was 14, to all parts of the world. Some folk just wanted to swap games, while others would send you wee titbits from Iceland, Turkey, Australia, wherever, and it was nice to send someone out a wee sweetie from here and take this piss if their national team had just got humped.

There's a statute of limitations on this kind of thing, isn't there?  

[NotThePars]

The Tony Hawks 1+2 remasters have been class for dipping into recently. Even made me download Skate 3 again.

4 and Underground were the ones that stuck w me I think cause they were the first I played.  The tunes from 2 and 4 are all time classics. Blood Brothers and When Worlds Collide still go.

Edited March 15, 2021 by NotThePars

[DA Baracus]

49 minutes ago, Mr X said:

14 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Anyway, was thinking of games I missed (some ludicrous omissions!) and could have had in my list came up with:
Little Big Adventure 2
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Quake 2
Toejam and Earl
GTA San Andreas
Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Cool Boarders 2
Smackdown 2
XIII
Mass Effect 3
Mass Effect 2
Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2
Day of the Tentacle 
Theme Hospital
Mario Kart 64
Age of Empires 2

Tony hawk's! Omg however could I have forgotten that

Aye I'm kicking myself at that one. Without question should have been on my list.

[DA Baracus]

14 hours ago, BFTD said:

Really, Quake 2? It was OK and all, but id had started the era of making games as tech demos for their new engines, and the gameplay was fairly meh. Most of the games made on that engine were probably better than Quake 2 TBH.

Loved it. The multiplayer was absolutely brilliant. Hours of me and friends playing against each other made it an absolute favourite.

[BFTD]

6 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Loved it. The multiplayer was absolutely brilliant. Hours of me and friends playing against each other made it an absolute favourite.

Oh yeah, we played deathmatch Q2 a lot at college once they got PCs in that could play more than Doom. So much fun.

Possibly the last time I played a multiplayer game. Deathmatch just isn't the same when you can't hear someone you know yelling "son of a bitch!" from down the hall  

[GNU_Linux]

If we're talking expensive games & consoles the NEO GEO AES wins hands down.

The NEO GEO AES was pretty much the NEO GEO MVS arcade board stuck into a console form factor with the only difference between the two being a different pin out for the cartridge port.

Given it was fully fledged arcade hardware the AES was miles ahead of consoles of the times in terms of power & game size were much larger resulting in a console launching at $649 with game carts an eye watering $200 or thereabouts.

Unsurprisingly it was a very niche system but had a good shelf life with hardware being ceased in 1997 & games coming out until 2004. As a result even by game collecting standards AES game pricing is wild. The cheaper way to do things is to 'consolize' an MVS arcade board as the hardware is more readily available & the MVS arcade carts are much cheaper compared to the AES. The only downside is the MVS games came in non-de-script carts & plain boxes as they were meant for arcade operators but after market options do exist however if you want a repro of the AES packaging for an MVS cart. The MVS also has a flash cart option  which is a way to load games on cartridge based consoles via sd card but like all things NEO GEO its $$$$$.

The most expensive AES cart is the PAL release of the fighting game Kizuna Encounter which has roughly 10 copies known to exist & last sold in 2013 somewhere between 12k and 13.5k with current estimates suggesting in future if one was ever to be sold it could fetch 35k to 50k. The Japanese version which is the same bar the packaging & inserts is a fairly common title & goes for $50.

 

[GNU_Linux]

14 hours ago, BFTD said:

Really, Quake 2? It was OK and all, but id had started the era of making games as tech demos for their new engines, and the gameplay was fairly meh. Most of the games made on that engine were probably better than Quake 2 TBH.

Quake II was originally meant to be an entirely new IP but after numerous failed attempts they decided to do it as a Quake II hence why thematically it's so jarring compared to OG Quake which is a Lovecraftian horror inspired game but Quake II is more in the sci-fi realm.

 

[Stellaboz]

Totally forgot about THPS2 as well. Bonkers! Especially when I see a couple of my choices including Destruction Derby. Loved DD but Tony Hawks was the more obvious choice. 

 

[Lofarl]

I had a 3DO.  They were quite rare.  I had a pal that had an Atari Jaguar and a Phillips Cdi.

[SANTAN]

4 hours ago, Baptiste Bourgeois said:

I never liked Tony Hawk games tbh. 

However Skate completely killed the genre for any competitors by making the perfect, unbeatable mechanics for a skating game. Skate 3 is a glorious game, I'm gutted I forgot about it actually, it'd be in my top 10 easily. 

Cannot wait for Skate 4.

Yeah the second I saw someone mention Tony Hawk I thought "f**k I've forgot Skate!"

I wasnt big into Skate 3 but I played 1 and 2 religiously, think the moving stuff around put me off, more of a street skater myself

I think perhaps one of my proudest gaming achievements was doing a hippy flip in Skate 1 when it wasn't technically a move, they added it into Skate 2 where you just held down two buttons or something but on Skate 1 you had to actually go towards a grind bar and time your flip at the absolute perfect time to pull it off. 

I saw about Skate 4 a while ago, really hope it comes to fruition.

Also on the Tony Hawke subject number 3 was awesome, can still hear "HE ATE A WHALE" when I think back. 

Underground 2 was phenomenal for someone that used to watch all the Jackass/Viva La Bam stuff.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Stormzy

[BFTD]

5 hours ago, GNU_Linux said:

Quake II was originally meant to be an entirely new IP but after numerous failed attempts they decided to do it as a Quake II hence why thematically it's so jarring compared to OG Quake which is a Lovecraftian horror inspired game but Quake II is more in the sci-fi realm.

Yeah, it's a bit shite that the Quake name ended up being more associated with that mediocre alien cyborg shit, and later with just plain old deathmatch. It would be great to see a proper sequel with the same gameplay and proper fucking bosses this time.

2 hours ago, Lofarl said:

I had a 3DO.  They were quite rare.  I had a pal that had an Atari Jaguar and a Phillips Cdi.

It still haunts me that Hamleys were virtually giving away their remaining stock of Jaguars after Atari folded (again); £20 each, with a bundle of every game they had left with each console. Find the cash to buy a thousand of them, stick them in a shipping container for 25 years, and you're a millionaire.

[Miguel Sanchez]

IN 114TH PLACE, WITH 6 POINTS FROM 2 VOTES

Game: Grand Theft Auto III
Platform: PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC
Release date: 2001
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZMyBAjQ-QE
Poll-maker backlog status: It's on there. The only one of the 3D GTAs from this time I've played is San Andreas, but I'll get there eventually.