dan-likes-trees

Yeah I know what you mean - it's a tricky one. I guess I left it open to interpretation, though I think I'd tend toward 'favorite' games being the more interesting question. In any case I'd personally always value writing and gameplay over technical things like graphics or frame rate so they're maybe generally one and the same for me. No reason not to pump for Pilotwings; it's truely stood the test of time!

Hello pals! Just dropping in to say over in the general gaming board we've got a N-Europe Top 100 games ever vote going - a few days left to get your votes in! A definite lack of Nintendo games in there at the moment so that needs balanced out in my book! - https://forum.n-europe.com/topic/37157-the-official-n-europe-top-10-games-of-all-time/?page=2 Thanks all

Just realised I never posted mine! In time for the 'big deadline..' 1 - Witcher 3 - An astonishing, preposterous, unbelieveable videogame. Such a well crafted world, such well written characters, ridiculous in it’s scale and in the quality of it’s DLC expansions. Beautiful art direction and weird moments, truely fleshed out locations, choices that play out tens of hours later. Gwent. Most importantly it has such a consistently vibrant sense of personality, humor and macabre that not been touched since. A true adventure. 2 - Journey - From a 100 hour game to a 2 hour game - exceptional art design, truely a unique experience and one unique to the medium. The experience of moving through the final moments with a stranger stayed with me like few other in games 3 - Last of Us - What I love about this game is how well the gameplay matches up with tone of the story - combat always felt convincingly scrappy, ad-hoc, desperate. The acting is top notch and that soundtrack.. 4 - Ocarina of Time - First console game I played and for a long time, the best. Classic structure but an epic tale, packed with weird, creepy characters and series-best dungeons. Maybe the best soundtrack ever? 5 - Inside - Triumph of art direction, super memorable and super spooky. Some of the moments are the most mad and memorable I’ve seen in a game - the creepy underwater monsters, the amazing bits with the walls of sound. Marvellously inventive. 6 - Pokemon Red & Blue - I remember as an 8 year old huddling round a massive poster of all 150 pokes on the school field before the game was out, and planning our future teams. I’ve played it through a bunch of times over the years - it hasn’t aged, it’s the perfect length, a great roster of characters, and doesn’t have the same childishness or gross graphics of the later games. Arcanine, Alakazam and Raichu 7 - Street Fighter 2 - The perfect fighting game; chess-like in it’s pace, great cast, great sfx, timeless. Memorably played the 2 player first to 100 wins with a friend in one sitting - the timer counts out at 99. Who knew? 8 - Fortnite - The nostalgia factor hasn’t kicked in but I’ve pilled up about 200 hours into this game and still every time I play something mad or unusual seems to happen, and teaming up online is a blast so it’s earned it’s place! The live evolving map is unlike anything I’ve played before, and it’s still tense AF in the last 5. Having jumped in day 1, chuffed to see what a success it’s become 9 - Age of Empires 2 - Warm memories of slamming this on the old windows 98 box for multi hour sessions. Ageless, still a great game, especially LAN 10 - What remains of Edith Finch - Completely bursting with ideas and emotion, gameplay and narrative ideas. Rams more into 4 hours than most 80 hour games manage. Notable exclusions - Walking Dead Season 1, Shadow of the Colossus, Diddy Kong Racing, N++, Beyond Good and Evil, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Timesplitter’s 2, countless others......

I really need to get to Chrono Trigger and Half Life 2 considering how much of the rest of that list I luv. Wish I'd played KotOR at the time - playing it now the writing and worldbuilding is so so good but I succumbed to the janky gameplay about halfway through. Keep getting the urge to go back to it. And I feel the exact same as you about Beyond Good and Evil! Going to extend this by a couple of weeks as lists are still trickling in (and I'm still to write mine up!). I'll maybe get it posted in the Nintendo board quite a few of those folk haven't posted, and set a deadline of say the 22nd July?

I actually think this would be dope, considering the whole gameplay loop / progression across botw is pretty similar in microcosm to pubg/ fortnite. The level design of the Fornite island seems pretty inspired by breath of the wild too (particularly it's verticality with the mountains. The shield surfing and parachute too.. it's ready to go! Shame it would never happen but still

Hah yeah probs, I guess it made more sense in the context of the Nintendo one where various entries from the mario / zelda series could probably make a solid top ten. It's mainly to stop me posting football manager 2003, 2009, 2011 and 2013 No worries man! Enjoy that free time! Feel free to wait until this one's posted, haha Amazing writeup @Fierce_LiNk! No surprises for that well earned top spot! Lots of crossover in my top 5 too

Bit gutted they've apparently binned off psvr games from ps plus - made it great value for money (and more importantly maybe made the PSVR worthwhile!) Heavy Rain's a great one for anyone who's not played it

Tbf - same as! I think I've got my top 5 down but beyond that there's a bunch of contenders.. Haha sorry @Nicktendo - loved your thread! I was planning to wait till you were done but there was a few months since the last post so.. Yeah @lostmario no. 8 does rather break the 3 franchise rule - swap it for something else? Or not, I'm not too precious. I guess 2D and 3D marios are soort of separate entities.. Great lists chaps! Lot of love for Metroid Prime - I'll get that added to 'the 'great games I'm ashamed not to have played' list (longside Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, Dark souls..). Animal crossing for unexpected charge for an overall top 5 spot?

Nice list - glad you had that in your back pocket to get the ball rolling - Pro Skater 2 and Ace Attorney are great shouts! I'm actually playing through Mass Effect 2 on 360 at the moment just as I've never played it before and it always pops up on these sorts of lists. Definitely living up to the hype even after all this time, though maybe it seems a bit dated in the level design / enviornments - lots of grey corridory sci-fi-y places - I think KOTOR had a bit more of a sense of travelling between worlds. The characters and voice acting are all top notch - hoping some of that transfers through to Anthem - and graphically it's aged pretty well - the depth of field and grain overlays have helped a lot I think.

Inspired by @Nicktendo's thread about Nintendo's best games (which he's cruely stalled on finishing up posting at #20 a few months ago!), I thought it would be fun to all chip in our top ten games on any platform and see what N-Europe lands on for it's ultimate list! Rules below - more or less cribbed from what was settled on in the Nintendo thread.. Each post your top ten games of all time, ranked in order (perhaps with a little explanation or pic) In - two weeks time? 8th July? I'll tot them up - 1 point for a game ranked #10th and 10 points for #1st, and post the ultimate ranked list of N-Europe's definitive games! Two titles from each franchise max! Games can be from any platform / developer / publisher Any questions aside.. Get posting!!

Regardless of whether you think it offers meaningful gameplay, what it absoloutely does offer in spades is pretty exceptional atmosphere and art. It’s more akin to a experiential art installation than a platformer - maybe that’s not to your tastes but that type of experiential design is a totally valid thing for a game to focus on - it’s also something that videogames do uniquely well. To me the other part of the enjoyment is that it’s kind of an adventure game - there’s definitely a sense of progression as you descend further through the environment, and as Ronnie implies, the enjoyment is in moving through the environments and interpreting them. Similar to BotW, which is more about the act of exploring than any narrative, or Journey, which is similarly abstract, short, and designed around the experience rather than complex puzzles or gameplay (and also is gr8). Each to their own & fair enough - definitely not the game for you. But it would be a right old bore if all game designers felt they had to stick to strict ideas of standard western storytelling - the more varied games coming out are the better in general for the industry as a whole. A lot of the most memorable games of the last decade have been a bit mental in structure and mechanics!

Agreed wit dat. Some of the sound design and art direction (particularly the lighting) is really extraordinary, unlike anything I've ever played - masterpiece is the word.

Wasn't planning to watch this but I caved.. seriously impressive stuff! Love how reactive all the gameplay is. Looks bloody amazing. The state of the world looks interesting too. Hyped

All of you Switch only owners yet to try this - enjoy! I haven't been into an online shooter since the days of Halo 3 but this one is really special.. sucked up a tonne of my time in the past few months

I think.. this looks dope? I've been reading up on the previews and the RPG dialogue additions sound well up my street. Probably a bit too soon - I've been thinking of picking up Origins but I'll probably wait for this now.

The leaves fluttering around at the end.. dope. Surely not hitting this generation though is it?

That Cyberpunk trailer Loved the glitch-out intro. World looks absoloutely buzzing, tonnes going on in every frame. Bit gutted about the lack of release date though Pretty great show I thought! Battletoads gameplay footage would've made it for me - lovely surprise!

Haha that awkward moment when they've got nothing to show on Playground's Fable

Never played or been interested in the Metro series but - that trailer was pretty baller no?

Going to be an interesting one - it would be great if they do announce today - I can see them not doing so but only in the case that it's not going to be coming out on the this generation of consoles! Hoping it's the other extreme and they're going to do a Fallout 4-style trailer and release later this year.... cammaannn!!

Did you get it in the end? Despite mixed reviews it sounds pretty cool to me.. a definite victim of an industry that values polish and high production values rather than ideas and good writing. Got cult hit written all over it! That said my backlog is too big at the moment; going to hold off for the time being..

Had my eye on it for a while but a little put off by the previews.. Holding out hope though - the trailers and general vibe have some nice Blood and Wine witcher vibes. I could definitely live with shonky combat if the writing is good or reactive... Looking forward to seeing the reviews roll in!

Who'd want to be a goalkeeper? Gotta feel for Karius after that - hard to imagine him ever truely bouncing back in his career. That third one was absolutely waiting to happen - can't have had his head screwed on properly after that horror show of a first. Should Klopp have taken him off? Kind of glad Bale looks on the way out of Real - deserves way better than he gets from their fans and would surely walk into any other starting eleven in the world. His first was truely incredible - the pub I was in went silent for a second after he scored it. Way better than that shin goal rooney scored a few years back that everyone jizzed themselves over. No way we could afford to bring him back to Spurs though; downer!!

How come you guys don't hop on the UK ign stuff? I find the IGN UK podcast / staff way more down to earth, funny, and pretty pretty honest in their views, even when they (frequently) juxtapose the IGN US reviews. Agree on you guys on Kinda Funny. The swearing comes across as so cringe inducing and childish, can't stand it. Full on team Frame Trap myself. Love how in depth they go on like.. every game that comes out. Ben's grown on me a lot. The Kotaku Splitscreen podcast is also pretty good these days, mainly because the two hosts are some of the only reporters doing actual journalism in the industry, and they get pretty good guests on as a result. Try dat!

Booted this up for the first time in months as a couple of my colleagues are going through it, as I never actually finished it off.. I'm about 70/80-odd shrines in - remembering why I moved on from it now. I'm finding that I'm at the point where I'm doing a lot of aimless wandering at the moment; but as I've found a lot of the shrines there's often very little reward. The first 40-odd hours of the game were amazing, but I'm finding it a bit unrewarding and even frustrating when I spend half an hour looking for shrines or cool stuff on the map, but just find the same old enemies and terrain that I vaguely recognise.. Not a criticism of the game really as I really did think the majority of my playtime was fantastic, but is there a technique for finding missing shrines beyond scouring every corner of the map for controller vibrations? I also feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of the game in some regards (like, no idea what the massive flying chinese dragon things are for instance) but slightly at a loss of how to progress without feeling the hours ebb away..